A group of students worked late last week in Windsor to solve an odd problem: How to get through airport security with a robot and its jumble of wires, batteries and motors connected to a cellphone.

The students four in high school and one middle school together make up Windsor-based Black Diamonds Robotics. This past month, the team and its robot simply designated Black Diamond Robotics No. 9899 took first place at the state's FIRST Tech Challenge.

That means these kids built, programmed and piloted a robot against 59 other teams from across Colorado in a high-stakes arena challenge and came out on top.

The team's victory at the state competition earned them a chance to compete this weekend in the FTC West Super-Regional Championship in Tacoma, Wash. If they do well enough there, they'll advance to international-level competition.

Getting a robot through airport security is just one of the many challenges they've faced together as a team. The students essentially worked as engineers to design and create a robot to solve this year's challenge. Robots in this competition had to be capable of picking up plastic balls of the correct color, launching the balls into a goal a few feet off the ground and moving a yoga ball.

Building Colorado's top robot took hundreds of hours from each team member, said Joshua Rohrbaugh, a sophomore at Liberty Common High School in Fort Collins.

In competition, the robots compete head-to-head in teams of two. Each team can remotely pilot their machine for part of the challenge, but rules require the robot to compete on its own for a round, operating solely on the team's programming.

Just getting the robot to drive in a straight line can be challenging, said Joshua Rohrbaugh's brother, David Rohrbaugh, a senior at Liberty Common and the team's software specialist.

The 30-pound plastic and metal robot functions well without a remote control. Everyone on the team agrees No. 9899's autonomous operation is one of its strengths. However, there were a lot of bugs to find and fix in the programming code, David admitted.

His dad, John Rohrbaugh, helped.

John and his fellow coach, Tom Schmerge both engineers spend a lot of time with the team. They enjoy it. John gets to explore engineering and teach his trade to his sons. Schmerge's daughter, Aubrey, a junior at Windsor High School, is on the team, too. She's the robot's pilot, and does much of the team's fabrication work.

Brecken and Kayden Housden a freshman at Windsor High and seventh-grader at Windsor Middle School, respectively round out the team. They're the newest additions, so they do a little of everything to help and learn where they can.

Black Diamond Robotics isn't affiliated with a school. The team operates out of Schmerge's garage in south Windsor.

Tom and John have put in just as many hours as each of the kids at least 300, they estimate.

"I think that creates a wonderful parent-child connection," said John's wife, Janelle Rohrbaugh. "It's our family hobby."

After a bit more work and collaboration, the Black Diamond Robotics team sussed out another solution on the airport dilemma: a wooden, wheeled box to carry No. 9899 through the airport.

It took a bit of work, but the team managed to get airport security and the airline to let them gate-check the robot. That way, the students and their coaches could explain to airport security what their collection of wires, motors and metal is: a solution.

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Windsor-based Black Diamond Robotics prepares for tech championship - Greeley Tribune