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A group of kids accustomed to challenges -- one uses crutches, three have little or no hearing, another travels by motorized wheelchair -- began remaking the world in Lego yesterday, one Starbucks at a time.
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Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Brother and sister Nathan Korzekwa, 11, and Allie Korzekwa, 9, of Mount Joy, Pa, from the home-schooled team "Altered Bricks," compete with their robots at No Limits Challenge yesterday. Click photo for larger image. |
This year's contest theme was "No Limits," and contestants were instructed to come up with robots that could solve problems for disabled people. Lego robots traveled on a track where they had to open Lego doors, pick up eyeglasses made of Lego, feed Lego pets, put a Lego ball in a Lego hoop.
Tech-Link brings together kids with and without disabilities, to get them involved in math and science. With yesterday's theme focused on helping the disabled, the Tech-Link kids, often faced with disadvantages in the hearing, seeing, running-for-the-bus world, finally had a Lego up on the competition.
At day's end, the Tech-Link teams had won first and second place in the research category and a second place in programming.
"It's just ironic that this theme dovetailed into what our personal interests are," said Dave Harding, a retired rehabilitation counselor from the North Side and a team adviser.
Along with putting Lego robots through the standardized course to pick up points for every task successfully completed, the teams had presentations to make. One Tech-Link team, who dubbed themselves Blue Flame, gave their report on a visit to the Oakland Starbucks with Spero Pipakis, who is director of access for Pittsburgh Vision Services and who is blind.
After confronting unreadable menus and unfindable rest rooms, Tech-Link's scientists came up with an idea: the pocket bot.
Judge Mike Clark, a senior systems engineer for Harris Corp., listened as Augustus Lewis IV, 13, of Mount Oliver, explained the concept.
"I open it up and take it out and I say how much and the amount of money comes up," Augustus said. An interpreter spoke the words for him, picking them up by sign language because Augustus is deaf.
Teams yesterday split up many of the myriad of tasks required to make their robots competitive. Augustus was especially fixed on the idea of getting the ball in a hoop on the table-sized course.
"We'd get 50 points if we did," he beamed. "He's the only boy I know who can spell 'Roethlisberger' with his hands," said instructor Anita Iurlano.
Two other Tech-Link kids performed a few skits, showing how Spero would move through a restaurant, store or building lobby, his pocket-bot picking up signals programmed into the place, giving directions the way a navigation system inside some cars now do, except instead of a satellite signal, it would pick up messages from sensors in the building itself.
"The technology already exists," said Harding. Indeed, visitors to Starbucks can link up to the Internet wirelessly. A pocket bot wouldn't seem that farfetched.
Harding said the Tech-Link kids haven't sent their report along to Starbucks Corp. at this point, but he figures they will.
The Robotics Consortium, a sprawling warehouse of a place tucked beneath the 40th Street Bridge, was awash in team colors and team mottoes and the center of its main work area was converted into a makeshift arena that resembled the fight scenes from "Mad Max." Fans of teams filled the stands during the demonstration competition.
A few, such as Pirate Tech Inc., waved skull and crossbone banners. The Lego Maniacs cheered Lego-maniacally. The most striking T-shirts were worn by several squads belonging to the Word of God Robo Club.
"For God and robots," grinned parent Jim Obringer. The team hails from Word of God School, formerly St. Anselm, in Swissvale, and picked up two awards.
"It's a pretty serious group," Obringer said. "There were actually eliminations."
Kids worked on these projects after school hours, on their own time, and some, such as the team from Towanda, in Pennsylvania's northeast, rode for five hours to get to Pittsburgh. Members of the RoboWhizards, a team from suburban Philadelphia, arrived after a six-hour trip, donned Harry Potter style wizarding hats and, last night, won the top prize, the Director's Award, for their work.
"This is a six month activity and a lot of these parents I'm seeing here for the fourth year in a row," said John Bares, director of the Robotics Consortium. "This brings a different kind of kid."
Among the kinds it brings is Rob Metzler, 14, of Hampton. He spent two days a week after school learning how to write the computer code needed to direct the Lego robot around its course.
He explained -- well, he tried to explain -- the grid of symbols and colored lines that resembled nothing so much as an organizational chart for the Pentagon. As it turns out, it's a computer code that tells his robot motor how many times to turn on, turn off, how many rotations per wheel, and when to lift an arm, lower it, how long, how far -- how confusing.
Rob assigned it the task of lifting up a tray of food and delivering it to somebody. He is, Bares said, doing precisely the same kind of code done upstairs by people in lab smocks. Like those folks, Rob is having a few glitches.
"I've gotten it to hit the tray, but the food falls off," he said.
"Maybe slow it down a little," Bares nodded.
At that point, the screen on Rob's computer appeared ready to explode, but he assured a frightened and computer illiterate visitor that it was the screen saver clicking on. As Bares said, he gets a different kind of kid in that place.
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