Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Monday, August 18, 2008

Students at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School are busily converting an old radio-controlled toy car into an autonomous, light-seeking, object-avoiding robot. But it’s just a warm-up project.

Their efforts are laying the groundwork for Dunbar to become only the third high school in Kentucky to participate in the nationwide FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition. The others are in Campbell County and Oldham County.

The group of teens, including one from Henry Clay High School, met on Wednesdays during summer break for what they called “robotics boot camp,” led by John Zbrozek, Dunbar’s TEAMS (Test of Engineering Aptitude in Math and Science) coach for the past two years.

“We’ve been building skills throughout the summer,” said Zbrozek, a retired electrical engineer and a volunteer instructor in the Math, Science & Technology Center. “We’re working to establish Dunbar as a registered, competitive robotics team.”

His fledgling group will press on with after-school sessions this fall, and some students in Dunbar’s engineering projects class will work on robotics as well. In addition, Henry Clay will send four or five freshmen to Dunbar for training one evening a week in preparation for launching its own robotics team next year.

About 1,500 teams across the country participate in the FIRST regional contests starting in January. The teams each receive the same instructions specifying what their robot should accomplish and the same kit of parts, which they know will be insufficient – that’s part of the challenge.

“You will need to invent your way up and out of the hole,” Zbrozek said. “You’ll have to be quick and clever” with only six weeks to design, assemble and test a robot.

Regional winners advance to the national competition at the Georgia Dome in the spring.

The team at Fort Thomas Highlands High School in Campbell County is a veteran competitor. “They know the ropes,” Zbrozek said. “They’ve built some pretty good robots.”

In a gesture of sportsmanship and encouragement, Fort Thomas Highlands donated some hardware and the “computer brain” of an old robot to Dunbar.

“We fired it up, and we’ve learned how to program it and are using it to build other kinds of things,” Zbrozek said, noting that his students used the parts to make a working elevator.

For more information about the FIRST competition: http://www.usfirst.org/