Published: March 27, 2008 10:41 am         

Inspirational Showing

Garrett robotics team headed back to world championship

OAKLAND - Once again, the Garrett County high schools' robotics team will participate in the world championship after receiving the Engineering Inspiration Award at its competition in Ohio.

"The Engineering Inspiration Award is the second highest award they give," Wendell Teets, schools superintendent, said. "I think it's a very high honor. It's an award that you do not earn through the competition that weekend. It's one that you earn through what you do in the school and community year-round."

Team 1629, the Garrett Coalition, qualified for the championships in 2006, and will return to Atlanta from April 16 to 19 for the world championships.

The team earned the third seed out of 46 teams at the competition last week. Members were interviewed by representatives from For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The students talked about creating their new robot, Meshach 4.0, through a standard parts kit given by FIRST and the modifications and fine-tuning they did with the guidance of mentors.

Students also had to speak on the subject of engineering and how the program has expanded in their lives and their community. This gave students the opportunity to talk about the events the group holds within the community. They also spoke about their involvement with the Garrett Engineering and Robotics Society, which works to promote, test and teach about robotics and engineering year-round.

Teets said that none of the interviews was conducted specifically for this award, and it came as a surprise for the students when it was announced they had won.

"Winning the Engineering Inspiration Award is a huge achievement and takes the efforts of not only those directly involved with the team, but many volunteers who do a wonderful job supporting our team and the goals of FIRST," Chuck Trautwein, team mentor, said.

Trautwein credited the participating volunteers and organizations and the county government for the success of the team.

Teets said that the effect that the robotics team and the competitions has had on the students is obvious, as the team consists of about 20 students and continues to grow each year. Of the seven graduating seniors, six are planning to major in engineering in college, and they have been accepted to and received scholarships from colleges and universities like MIT, Case and Penn State.

He said that these seniors, the first to go through all four years of school in the robotics team, had not considered engineering as a possible career seriously until they became involved in the team.

Now, as the high school team, as well as Southern Middle School's LEGO League team, head for the championships, the groups are accepting any form of donations through GEARS Inc., which is a tax-exempt organization. To find out more information on GEARS and how to make donations, log on to www.gearsinc.org.

Contact Sarah Moses at smoses@times-news.com.