Rise of the robots for Lynn, Swampscott teams

LYNN – On a recent Saturday afternoon, students and teachers from Swampscott High and Lynn Tech sawed, hammered and calculated in a flurry of activity as the two robotics teams built robots in upcoming regional competition in Boston.Nearby sat retired robots “Serius Bizness,” versions 1, 3 and 6, which the Lynn Tech robotics team built over five years of regional and national competitions. Now, the successful Lynn Tech robotics team members were happy to pass on their knowledge.Unlike Lynn Tech, this the first year Swampscott High will be competing – in fact it’s the first year the school has had a robotics team – said Phil Cherner, a junior at Swampscott.Click for a photo gallery.Cherner said the task would be difficult without help from the Lynn Tech team, which has competed successfully in regional and national competition since 2006.”Otherwise we’d be shooting in the dark,” Cherner said as he knelt beside a computer, attempting to send coded commands to the robot on a table nearby.”I’m trying to get our robot to work,” he explained. “We just want to see any signs if it’s working.”Being a rookie in the robotics world is a tough gig, said Bob Beaton, who co-founded the Lynn Tech robotics team five years ago and now mentors a team at Nashoba Valley Technical High School in Westford.”It’s a challenge, and these kids are going to find that out,” Beaton said while nearby Cherner and his team failed to start their robot.But the journey is half the battle, Beaton said.”We want these kids to be the next generation of engineers and scientists. Cause they’re the ones that solve the problems in the world,” he said.Swampscott freshman Rikki Rooklin has known she’s wanted to be a mechanical engineer for a few years now. But she said putting together a robot shines new light on what the field entails.”I’m learning what things do, how they do it,” she said as she snipped a wire with pliers. “Wires act as almost a phone call toward something else, sending information,” she explained.”I really enjoy this,” Rooklin added. “Even as a first-year team, we’re all having fun.”As a fifth-year team that has placed 17th in the nation before, Lynn Tech’s robotics team has no problem opening its doors to competition, said the team’s mentor, Chris Speropolous.”It’s in the best interest of teams to help other teams,” he said.For the past two years, the team has won the “Gracious Professional Award” at regional competitions for doing actions like spending four hours on competition day helping another team repair its robot’s arm.This year, Speropolous said the Lynn Tech team also volunteered to store and transport robots from teams traveling to the competition from Turkey, Canada and Mexico.Speropolous said the team actively seeks out opportunities to help its competitors. So much so that they have a term for it:”Co-operation,” said Lynn Tech sophomore Victoria Davis.As she helped Cherubin and the rest of Swampscott’s team find signs of life from their robot, Davis summed up what the competition is all about.”It’s supposed to be a fun learning experience, not necessarily about winning,” she said.Swampscott High and Lynn Vocational Technical Institute will showcase what they learned March 23-24 at Boston University, 925 Commonwealth Ave., for the 2012 Boston FIRST Regional Robotics Competition.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].