BonnerSprings.com

High school and middle school students from across the country and the world will meet in Bonner Springs next week to pit their robot-programming skills against each other.

The Search and Rescue Robot Challenge, April 18 and 19, at Bonner Springs High School, will feature between 25 and 30 teams from California to Connecticut, several teams from China and from the Kansas City metropolitan area.

Bonner Springs High School Principal Jerry Abbott said the decision to host the event at the school grew out of a conference held there last summer. Steve Waddell, CEO of Support Learning, was the keynote speaker at the conference on technology and education, and at the time was searching for a facility for the Search and Rescue competition.

"We're proud of our district PE center," said Abbott, who showed it to Waddell.

Waddell liked the gymnasium and the building so much that he decided the facility could host two more robotics meets in the next two years, Abbott said, with the 2009 competition being a regional one and 2010 being another international competition. Abbott said he expected the 2010 meet to have three or four times as many teams as this year's.

The objective of each team in this year's Search and Rescue Robot Challenge will be to program its robot to find a blinking light in a 8-foot-by-8-foot obstacle area. Each team will get the same kind of robot, which will have to navigate the same kind of course autonomously, starting at a point chosen by a judge. The robots each have 3 minutes to find the light. The exercise is intended to simulate a disaster site, in which a robot might be deployed to search for survivors, either to lead rescue workers or to bring food and water.

"So kids are not just competing," Abbott said. "They're trying to develop programs to help firemen and policemen."

Kris Munch, who teaches wood shop, drafting and robotics at the high school, is the sponsor for the two Bonner Springs High School teams competing in the event. Munch said the teams were composed of members from the robotics team that participated in last month's FIRST robotics competition in Kansas City, Mo.

"I grabbed our best computer programmers," Munch said. "It's all about computer programming."

The programming will consist of flow charts, which instruct the robot to react a certain way to certain stimuli or obstacles.

"It's pretty basic programming," Munch said.

The robots, which are about a foot in diameter with bubble tops, all have the same sensors, including light and heat sensors. There will be 12 pylons serving as obstacles, four no-pass barriers consisting of black paper on the arena surface. The robots each must stay within the taped perimeter of the arena. There will be at least two paths to the blinking light bulb, which may not be in view of the robot's starting point. Each team will get four practice runs, then two for the actual competition, Munch said.

On Tuesday morning, the captains of the two Bonner Springs teams, sophomore Chris Jenkins and senior Joe Bland, showed off the fruits of their work.

"We're still working the bugs out of it," Jenkins said he watched the robot traverse the arena, occasionally stopping it from running off the edge the worktable.

Bland's robot, which he nicknamed "RD-RR," seemed to be doing well except that it wasn't sensing the tape that marked the boundaries inside of which the contest rules require it to stay.

"The toughest part is remembering all the steps to program it, and not getting mad at the robot," Jenkins said.

The robot programmed by Bland - identical to Jenkins' robot - resembled a toy flying saucer on wheels, and whirred about the arena, stopping, backing up and turning to the side when it encountered either a pylon or sheets of black paper which the competition rules bar the robot from crossing.

Munch and the two captains figured it was a problem with the overhead light in the wood shop classroom where the arena was set up.

Bland and Jenkins said they were optimistic about their chances at the competition, even though the two said they'd heard the teams in China had been working with their robots for a year.

"All things considered, we've made a lot of progress in two weeks," Bland said.

The two robots, made by Grandar Inc., arrived two weeks ago.

The public is invited to the competition part of the event on Saturday morning. The day kicks off at 9 a.m. in the district PE center, 410B N. Bluegrass Dr. There will be refreshments and memorabilia for sale. The trials will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the awards supper for participants will follow at 6 p.m.

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