By Suzanne Hodgson

Staff Writer

With 3,000 onlookers, 10 high school students took center stage to compete with their brains against 48 other teams, and left the brawns to their creations.

More than half the students at The New School in Kennebunk took to the field in Manchester, N.H., last week to play robot soccer.

Orwell, the robot, won five matches, lost four and tied one, ending with a winning record, but was not placed in the standings. However, the team did receive the “judges’ award” for their efforts.

“They called us the ‘little engine that can,’” said Ross Kearney, robotics team adviser and part-time teacher at the school. 

This is the school’s second year at a For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, competition. The small independent school faced bigger teams from South Portland, Bonny Eagle and other schools with corporate sponsorships.

Ten high school students from The New School have been working around the clock for six weeks to build the robot with Kearney and other adult mentors.

Senior Sara Wilson joined the club after she went to watch the school compete last year. “They were doing really cool stuff and I wanted to be more knowledgeable,” she said.

Sophomore Rhiannon Alexander is also new and the only other girl on the team. Kearney said there’s a big push in the science field to get more girls involved in the program.

It’s not just girls that science and math fields are having problems recruiting.

“They’re trying to put scientists and engineers on the same level as sports stars,” Kearney said.

Over the weekend, the robots and the engineers were transformed into sports stars as each robot attempted to take a 10-second spin around the floor without human help, play 10 games of three-versus-three soccer and lift itself up 20 inches with another robot attached, six out of 10 times.

“We (The New School) don’t have sports teams, this is our sports team,”  Alexander. said.

Robot soccer was played on an indoor field divided into sections of three, with a red side and a blue side. Teams of robots changed throughout the competition so no one team could dominate.  Student engineers stood outside the field, controlling their robots to move over the sections, hoard or move the balls closer to the goals and kick them inside the opposing team’s goal.

William Eaton, a freshman, was this year’s robot driver. Eaton was one of four students on last year’s team.

Not only did Eaton guide the robot around with a joystick during the game, he was one of the robot’s primary builders and put in hours after school and over vacation.

Last year, The New School team had only four kids and built a basic wooden block robot with very few movable parts, but this year the 120-pound robot had kicking capabilities and a mechanical arm.

Cody Eaton, older brother of William Eaton, was one of the main designers and team captain. Cody Eaton explained the robot’s piston-driven mallet for kicking the ball and mechanical scissor arm.

Cody Eaton has worked on tractors and learned a few things from his Kennebunk neighbor who helped by volunteering his time, ideas and work space – on an Alpaca farm – to the students.

“This year’s robot is much more advanced, we pushed our knowledge,” Kearney said.

They also pushed their budget.

The school was unable to find local sponsors for this year’s event. Registration was $5,000 and up to $3,500 can be spent on the robot. The teams also have to pay for hotels, food and transportation costs.

Fortunately, for a second year in a row, BAE Systems, one of the main sponsors for the FIRST competition, donated the registration fee and an extra $1,000 for the robot.

“They didn’t want to disappoint 10 kids, it was really great of them,” Kearney said.

Kearney and other students chipped in additional money to build their robot.

Next year Kearney said the team plans to compete again and already is trying to get in contact with new sponsors to build an even more advanced robot for next year’s competition.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.