By Brian Burnes
The Kansas City Star
Copyright 2008 The Kansas City Star
BONNER SPRINGS, Mo. — The first responders of tomorrow were being programmed in Bonner Springs on Saturday.
About 45 students from across the country, as well as China, competed in the first Search and Rescue Robot Challenge and Conference.
The idea was to bring students from around the world to compete in creating and programming an autonomous robot that one day could help emergency workers locate survivors of disasters.
“We are trying to plant the seed in students that they have the power to affect the world,” said Steve Waddell, chief executive officer of I Support Learning, an Olathe educational software company and one of the event’s sponsors.
Conference events Saturday included a presentation from Bill Schneider, an Olathe Fire Department captain who is head of the department’s technical rescue group. Schneider discussed the search cameras and listening devices already used by departments like his and how robots could safely accelerate rescue operations.
“A lot of the kids these days just play their video games,” Schneider said. “These are the guys who are taking that to a higher level and may possibly one day help me find someone in a disaster.”
By early Saturday afternoon, students were spread across the basketball court in the high school’s field house, their laptops open on 20 long folding tables, attempting to tweak their prototypes’ performances.
Team by team, students placed prototypes that resembled small flying saucers on competition “arenas” consisting of white surfaces outfitted with orange cones and one blinking light bulb. Reading the surfaces and navigating the obstacles, the prototypes took various routes attempting to reach the light bulb.
One prototype went directly to it, prompting one team member to raise his arms in victory.
Another prototype slowly inched its away around an orange cone.
Still another wandered off the side of the surface, prompting a chorus of groans. For that team it was back to the drawing board -- or laptop.
Three members of a Hartford, Conn., team said the competition was rugged -- but that was what made it valuable.
“It’s a rare opportunity,” said Chakardhar Pellakuru, a student at the Greater Hartford Academy of Mathematics and Science. “The best way to learn is to apply what you know.”
Robotics represents an educational platform that demands much from the imagination of students, said a team leader from Shanghai.
“With a radio, the imagination is narrow,” said Ying-Jie Zin, a director of Shanghai Grandar Robotics Co. Ltd. “But a robot is a large space for the students’ imagination. They can think, they can imagine.”
“We are preparing young people for the 21st century,” added Jerry Abbott, principal of Bonner Springs High School, where 36 students are enrolled for a robotics class in the next academic year.
In 2009 the same competition will be held at California State University-Los Angeles. Local organizers like Waddell hope to stage it again in the Kansas City area in 2010.