Preston youth compete on world-class robotics team – The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

KINGWOOD Three young people from Preston County helped their robotics team win an international contest.

Henry Cerbone, Andrew Moorehead and Christopher Ballard are members of Mountaineer Area Robotics (MARS) Team 2614 in Morgantown.

The team recently won the Chairmans Award the top honor at the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics annual championship. The award means the team is a member of the competitions Hall of Fame.

MARS, which has 45 members, competed against more than 15,000 students from all over the world in St. Louis, Missouri.

The competition has a few components. Most visible is the robot game. Team members design, build and control a 120-pound robot to play a 3-on-3 game on a 24- by 48-foot field, Cerbone said.

He is one of the robot programmers. Moorehead is a machinist who makes parts using a CNC router, lathe, milling machine and other tools. Ballard is also a machinist, who plans to try programming.

Teams dont have to score the highest in the robot game to have a chance at winning a prize, because there is a lot more to the event. They also get points for robot design and for presenting a five-point business plan.

Judges also observe how they work together and interact with other teams.

At regional competitions, Moorehead was part of Tucker Teams, which helped struggling teams get their robots working and able to perform tasks, he said. This establishes excellent ties with other teams and shows that, although we are at competitions to compete, we are graciously professional and ready to help opponents whatever the situation.

To win the Chairmans Award, teams are judged on their outreach (starting new teams) and commitment to sharing inspiration about science, technology, engineering and math.

FIRST recognizes teams who have done amazing things to change the culture in their communities and spread FIRST and STEM programs in their communities and throughout the nation and world, said MARS mentor Alex Stout, whose late uncle Phil Tucker co-founded the team. The Chairmans Award is the most prestigious honor in FIRST. In fact, the only way to enter into FIRSTs Hall of Fame is to earn the Chairmans Award at the world championship. Even winning the world championship with the robots doesnt enter a team into the hall of fame.

There are around 3,000 teams in existence and around 5,000-6,000 teams that have ever existed, and 26 are in the hall of fame, Stout said. Among the perks of winning the chairmans award at the championship is that we are now invited back to the championship every year.

The MARS mission is to inspire youth throughout the state and the world, and its motto is We came to be inspired. We stay because we are. We will become the inspiration.

And they have. Cerbone said, There are more FLL robot teams than middle school football teams.

Some of the outreach MARS did at West Preston School in Arthurdale resulted in 20 new FLL and 20 junior FLL teams, eight of which MARS will fund.

In addition to getting younger students excited about STEM, MARS mentors teams and helps run competitions. Those activities happen year-round. MARS, which is 10 years old, started building FIRST Lego League teams in middle schools. Those teams build small robots of Legos and compete on a table, similar to a ping-pong table.

Those teams have grown from 20 to more than 110, MARS founder and mentor Earl Scime, chair of WVUs physics department told The State Journal. There are more than 250 robotics programs in the state now. We dont do it all ourselves. Our NASA partner at (Independent Verification & Validation Facility) has played a critical role. Some of the staff there are alums of MARS, and that really helps coordinate things.

There are many roles on the team for people with mechanical savvy, outreach and PR skills or a talent for entrepreneurship, Cerbone said.

To join, Cerbone said, members dont have to be the brainiest or a STEM superstar. Just as welcome as straight-A students are those who work to maintain a C average to get to stay on the team.

Moorehead said its a chance to work with students from all over Monongalia, Marion and Preston counties.

Were represented by so many different schools, he said. Homeschooled kids can join in, and that is amazing. If I cant join team sports, its really cool that I can do this.

Moorehead and Ballard are homeschooled. Moorehead graduated this spring and he will attend West Virginia University for mechanical engineering in the fall. Cerbone will be a junior at Preston High next school year. Cerbone said he would like to study robotics engineering in college and maybe work for Google robotics one day.

But first, MARS will travel to FIRST headquarters in Manchester, N.H., in July, where they will be honored alongside Thunder Down Under (winner of the championship held in Houston this year). They will watch the two winning alliances from the Houston and St. Louis championships compete against each other. And they will have dinner at FIRST Founder Dean Kamens estate.

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Preston youth compete on world-class robotics team - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)