Bulldogs on a roll with robot skills
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Waialua High and Intermediate School will send its award-winning students to the FIRST Robotics World Championship next week in Atlanta, Ga., with a bigger and better team and robot to show for their 24-7 effort.
(FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.)
It’s worse than sports, admitted team adviser Glenn Lee of the time investment involved,and 24 out of 25 robotics students play sports as well. But when you win that award, it erases all the tough times and long nights.
His team won the Chairman’s Award, the Motorola Quality Award, the Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award and the Website Award at the Hawaii Regional Robotics Competition March 26-28 in Stan Sheriff Center with 34 team robots angling for top positions on the theme of Lunacy (marking the 40th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon mission).
Waialua, which was pre-qualified for Atlanta, will join Regional winners Maui, McKinley and Moanalua high schools at the world competition April 15-18. (To check out the Hawaiian Kidsfact-packed website, go to www.waialuarobotics.com.)
With 25 students working this year on one robot, dubbed LunaKahuna, they spread the duties around. Tasked with documentation and marketing, for example, senior Brianna Acosta amassed an 8-pound book of the year’s work, maintains the website and did an extended interview recently on HPR’s Bytemarks Cafe.
Next year we hope to sponsor a team from Guam as a link to Asia schools, added Lee, himself a graduate of Leilehua High.Asia is going to love this stuff.
When they return from the world meet, it’s time for the May 14 benefit luau at Dole Plantation. There’s no break in the summer either, he said.That’s when they will construct a micro robot.
Though Lee said Waialua is considered a small, tough school with kids from broken homes, he’s proud that others around the world now know about his team.
It shows what a group of kids and adults can do with enough time and effort. It also instills confidence that changes students’ lives.
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