Local robotics team is racking up the wins – Sentinel & Enterprise

Fresh off a victory at a tournament in Worcester, members of the Terror Bots pose in front of their robot, Nugget. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / AMANDA BURKE

LEOMINSTER -- A 76-pound robot is quick on its "feet" and excels at climbing ropes.

The robot, called "Nugget," was nimble enough to net a team of teenage engineers two first-place wins at a Worcester regional robotics tournament earlier this month.

If the robot's winning streak continues, its human makers plan to gild its moniker and call it something new: "Golden Nugget."

"We're in a very good position to advance to the regional championships," said Jacob Janssens, a mentor to 15 teenagers on the robotics team at the Boys & Girls Club of Leominster and Fitchburg.

The team, known as Terror Bots, is participating in its sixth district championship tournament sponsored by FIRST Robotics, an organization founded in 1989 by medical-device inventor and Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate Dean Kamen.

Under this year's Steam Punk theme, teams who enter the competition pay $5,000 and must conceive, design, and build a robot that is capable of shuffling large yellow gears across the playing field before climbing up and hanging on a three-foot tall velcro rope, a move that wins the team precious bonus points.

Terror Bots synched the number-one spot at the tournament's finale at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute on March 10, when it scored the highest number of points out of 40 competing teams from across New England.

Comprised of students from seven area middle and high schools, Terror Bots also won the tournament's "Chairman's Award," a title given by the judges to the team that demonstrates the highest degree of "gracious professionalism" over the course of the three-day event.

Funded through grants and donors including Boston Scientific and Comcast, Terror Bots is one of only a few robotics teams in the nation that is associated with a Boys & Girls club, said Jon Blodgett, the teen-center director of the B & G Club of Leominster and Fitchburg.

"We focus on presenting kids with opportunities they never would have had otherwise," said Blodgett.

Terror Bots is the first-seeded team heading into its next competition beginning on March 31 at Hartford Public High School in New Hampshire, which is also a qualifying match for the New England District Championship in April.

Fitchburg State University applied mathematics student and Terror Bots mentor Paul Lefebvre, 27, said years ago, when he was in high school, membership on his West Springfield school's robotics team was the sole source of motivation propelling him towards graduation.

"I was a lost child," said Lefebvre. "The only reason I got the grades I needed to stay in school is because I was on the robotics team."

One of Terror Bots' youngest members, J.C. Oquendo, 14, joined the team last October, when, as an aspiring paramedic, he knew nothing about engineering.

"I had no clue what I was doing," said Oquendo, who said he now hopes to become a plane pilot. "It was like that weird feeling when you don't know what to do. Then all of the sudden, it clicks."

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Local robotics team is racking up the wins - Sentinel & Enterprise