on 28-05-2007 12:42

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Del., Pa. teenagers show off technology skills to president

Thirty-three area teenagers demonstrated their award-winning robot to President George W. Bush on Monday as he honored them for encouraging other students' interest in science, technology, math and engineering.

The Miracle Workerz of MOE Robotics Group, based in Wilmington, won the FIRST Robotics Competition 2007 Chairman's Award in Atlanta last month. The group's members were among 100 students and mentors from winning teams who visited the White House on Monday.

"There's a lot of talk about the U.S. falling behind, but I look around and I don't see that," said team captain Andrea Agra, an Ursuline Academy senior who will study mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute next year.

"We know that science is the future. We are in high school now, we are looking at colleges, and we know where the future of the U.S. and the world is," she said.

Inventor Dean Kamen, who created the two-wheeled Segway transportation scooter, founded the nonprofit FIRST -- "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" -- in 1989 to motivate students to pursue opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math. FIRST teams develop robots to compete in a game, which changes each year. In this year's contest, the robots picked up innertubes and placed them on spider leg-like racks.

The Wilmington-based team includes students representing 14 Delaware schools, two Pennsylvania schools and home schoolers. Because of the team's sponsorship by DuPont, known for its "Miracles of Science," students chose the name "Miracle of Engineering," or MOE.

Although the Miracle Workerz' robot, MOEzilla, lost in the quarterfinals, the team won the Chairman's Award for its community outreach to excite other students about technology and engineering, including a January tournament that drew 3,600 people to the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark.

As the largest single-day FIRST event in the country, it is a great way to reach even elementary school students, Agra said. "They see the older kids doing it. We hope they stick with it."

Teammate Rai Hannaford, a junior at Cab Calloway School of the Arts, agreed.

"I hope they just get excited about math and science and that they do something that is really worthwhile," she said. "Not to say that sports aren't worthwhile, but math and science and even just the communication and networking skills that you learn while on the team. ... I hope that a lot of middle school and elementary students get that chance."

The Miracle Workerz built their 2007 robot, MOEzilla, in a space on the DuPont Barley Mill Plaza site. In addition to financial support, 11 of the 15 engineering and technical mentors for the team are DuPont employees.

"DuPont, like many other technology companies, is running with a limited number of technological talent in this country," said John Larock, staffing manager of DuPont Engineering and Miracle Workerz team coordinator. "We are going to need to build a technological work force in the future.

"They learn math and science, but what this program teaches them is how to apply these programs in real-world problem solving," he said.

Agra was chosen as one of the students to explain the program and project to Bush.

"He's the most powerful man in the world, and I can't come up with another high school student I've ever known that has met him," she said.

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Last update: 28-05-2007 12:42

Published in : Bot News, Educational

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