Testing the limits: School watches racing robots

ISAAC F., Watertown Splash staff reporter

On Friday, Jan. 8, the robotics class came out in style.

The students raced the robots they had made in their robotics class in the Watertown Middle School auditorium in front of the entire school.

Two robots worked together in a group for the best time. Matt Loughran, the robotics teachers, would call out, “Ready, set, go!” and the crowd would cheer as the first robot would start up and drive to the next robot about 19 feet away. The first robot would trigger a sensor on the other robot that would start it and send it back to where the first robot started.

Eight teams competed and the best time was 7.89 seconds.

Every robot was different. Some robots were very fast and some were quite slow. The students had to do a lot of preparation to make the robots ready to race. They had to test and retest their robots to make sure they were reliable. If the students ran into a problem, they had to take more time out of testing to fix the car.

The class put a lot of work into the cars and everyone is looking forward to seeing what else they will make.

–Feb. 12, 2010–