York College Engineering Students Are Helping Local High School Build Champion Robot
Posted February 9, 2000FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
York, Pennsylvania--For more than a dozen William Penn Senior High School students, controlling a robot will no longer be restricted to their television, computer, or hand-held game. It will be a real-life experience.
For the second consecutive year, a group of students from the high school will be competing in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition. This year, however, they will benefit from the assistance of York College mechanical engineering students.
The high school and college students are in the midst of a six-week design and construction process that will culminate with a robot doing battle in the Philadelphia Alliance Regional at Drexel University March 23-25. Winners at the regional sites will compete in the national championship at Walt Disney World in April.
Three York College senior mechanical engineering students are using this venture as their capstone design project. Their job is straightforward but complex—to design and construct a robot that can retrieve balls and deposit them into a goal during a two-minute time period. The robot must also be able to “play” defense. The high school students are responsible for strategizing and controlling the robot at the competition. The two groups of students are meeting twice weekly until the competition to discuss the ongoing evolution of the machine.
This York College-William Penn Senior High School partnership is turning ideas into reality and, hopefully, a champion.
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