Robot games stir students

LOS ANGELES — One-armed machines on wheels faced off Friday in a robotics competition that was the culmination of six weeks of ingenious engineering for two Glendale schools.

"I think if you look beyond just building a robot, it's the whole experience," Crescenta Valley High School student Ara Kourchians, 17, said of his experience in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — Los Angeles regional robotics competition. "The robotics shop just becomes your home."

Crescenta Valley and Clark Magnet high schools were among more than 50 high school teams from around California in the seventh annual competition, which began at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on Thursday and will end today.

Avo Terzian, who graduated Clark Magnet in 2002, said he was offered a position at Jet Propulsion Laboratory right after high school to help with the Mars Exploration Rover. It was the robotics program at Clark Magnet that helped him get the job at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"I tell them your project is building a robot, but what you're really doing is building yourselves," he said.

But the competitive spirit still ran high.

The student-made robots banged and slammed into one another as they tried to block opponents or get to their goal.

In this year's game — called "Rack 'N' Roll" — robots had to hang inflated tubes on pegs on a 10-foot structure in the center of a playing field. Three high schools partnered per team, competing against the opposing trio to see who could hang the most tubes. The teams also received extra points if the robot lifted itself off the ground at least 4 inches.

Crescenta Valley High infused some finesse into the design of its robot, FalKON, to help it get around bulky opponents, said 18-year-old Ben Ritter, a Crescenta Valley senior.

"We have an omnidirectional drive system," Ritter said. "Basically we can move in any direction…. We're like a Reggie Bush on the field. We're agile and fast."

Clark Magnet High chose to focus on the business end of the robot — the arm and grapple. Team-members glued rubber grip mats to the grapple, which could open and close, to help it grab tubes.