Horry County Schools’ robotics team embark on road to competition

The race is on for Horry County Schools’ FIRST Robotics Competition high-school-level teams as they face six weeks of intensive work – designing, building and perfecting their robots -- to meet the contest’s Feb. 21 ship date.

This year’s game, “Rebound Rumble,” was unveiled Saturday to contestants worldwide via a NASA satellite telecast, and area teams traveled to The Citadel in Charleston for the announcement and to receive their kits of basic components.

“It’s the toughest one we’ve ever had, there’s no doubt about it,” said Bucky Sellers, who teaches engineering at the Academy for the Arts, Science and Technology and has been involved with FIRST Robotics for nine years. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Sellers said the robots students build will have to play basketball -- picking up a ball 8 inches in diameter, maintaining possession and shooting at baskets that are 3, 6 and 9 feet high – but no dunks allowed. He said a Kinect for Xbox 360 module will drive the robots, and the use of motion sensors and infrared targets will require precision accuracy.

“It’s an extreme engineering challenge, which is what it’s supposed to be,” said Sellers, whose AAST team, along with the team from the Academy for Technology and Academics, are the school district’s veterans. He said this year’s game will be challenging for rookie teams that are learning the whole process from scratch, but that even experienced teams have their work cut out for them.

The school district has four rookie teams in the competition from Carolina Forest, Conway, St. James and Socastee high schools. With time of the essence, this first week already has presented scheduling challenges, with students exams and the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

At Carolina Forest High School, the new robotics team has 15 members so far. Science teacher Nathan Ernest and math teacher Jan Hucks are leading the group, which will continue work on their robot, despite the holiday.

At a Wednesday work session, senior Andrew Rollins said it didn’t take long for the group to get started, brainstorming Monday and getting down to work Tuesday. He said learning about robotics was something that would help him in college.

“I plan to attend Clemson [University] next year and study engineering,” Rollins said. “I haven’t had a lot of hands-on experience, and I thought this would be a good way to get that.”

Kyle Gibson, a junior, is contributing his programming skills to the team.

“I’d learned some [programming] on my own,” said Gibson, who said he’s already started learning some new things related to the robot. “I’ve been interested in computers since sixth grade, and I actually enjoy it.”

That is music to Sellers’ ears, who said FIRST Robotics gives students valuable exposure, especially to technology executives who attend the competition. He said many students have been recruited for their work, gaining jobs along with paid college educations.

But teams need more than just technically oriented students. Members also are needed for a variety of areas, including graphics design, budgeting and community service.

Helen Tran, one of five female members of the Carolina Forest team, doesn’t plan on an engineering career but joined the team because of its math and science focus, and because it’s just plain fun.

“I love this group of people,” said Tran, a senior who will study pre-pharmacy at Presbyterian College next year. “They understand me – we’re all nerds – and it’s fun to put these parts together and make it move. It’s something I can do with my class and is another memory I’m creating.”

Community involvement – including volunteer mentors and financial support for travel – is crucial to the success of any team. Horry County school board member Karen McIlrath said she has been contacted by engineers in the community who want to be mentors, and that some companies already have given support, including Santee Cooper, which donated mats as part of a robotics game that has been designed to get middle and elementary school robotics teams off the ground.

Carolina Forest is getting guidance from a parent who is skilled in programming and from two Horry County high school graduates who worked on previous robotics teams at AAST.

Joseph Cloutier, who works at an engineering firm, graduated from Carolina Forest and said he had no qualms about sharing his robotics team experience with the students.

“It’s made me who I want to be right now,” Cloutier said. “It showed me what I want to do, and it’s a huge learning experience for them.”

The Palmetto Regional competition will be held in Charleston March 22-24. Sellers said matches, which are set each day by a computer algorithm, will involve three teams at a time, the culmination of a lot of work and a lot of strategy.

“When you’re in it, you’re in it 100 percent,” said Sellers, who will put in 600 hours with his team outside of his job in the next six weeks. “When it comes down to the wire, they don’t care how much time it takes. They’re going to be there in the wee hours of the morning, and that’s the way it is all around the world.

“It’s an exciting time because we look forward to it all year long,” he said. “It’s the next best thing to Christmas.”