Duane's Robotics Competition

Though I am a little behind in blogging, this one will interest all you "Duane Fan's" out there. On December 6th, 2010 Duane lead his Chicago Knights Robotics Team at a robotics competition hosted at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The program that provides these competitions is called "First Robotics"


Duane worked with his team at this all day event competing in different robotics competitions where teams would "play the field" with their robots. This years competition involved the robots taking batons out of a holder, crossing bridges, and placing the batons in their goals. Different moves gave the robot teams different points, and the total points at the end of the game determined the winner. It was so cool to see these robots maneuver! Remember, these are made primarily by high school students, which makes it even cooler.

The Battlefield

Duane did a great job sorting out rules and getting his team to the right places at the right times. Though his team didn't win any awards, it was a great learning experience, and everyone had fun. I showed up halfway through the day with some refreshments, and found Duane like this:

That's my man!!!

Way to go Chicago Knights!

The next competition involves robots as large as humans doing some of the same types of gymnastics, I'm excited to see that competition. . . Here's a picture from last year:

The awards ceremony at the end: