Schools

Young Woodbury Engineers to Battle with Robots

Teams from Woodbury, East Ridge and the Math and Science Academy will pit their robots against each other as part of a statewide competition this weekend.

The Final Four is this weekend.

But there will be a hoops competition of another sort at the University of Minnesota's Mariucci Arena.

Teams of young engineers from , and the have been working for the past six weeks on robots whose job is to score buckets as part of the FIRST Robotics competition. (Extra points are awarded if teams can get their robot to balance on a ramp.)

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The competition runs March 29-31 at Mariucci, with 60 teams from across the metro bringing in their robots. The three winners will go on to a statewide competition. It is free to attend.

Today marks a “build and practice day,” followed by tournament-style competition Friday, with advancing teams continuing Saturday, said Mark Gryzwa, an engineer who has been helping out the Woodbury High School team.

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The Woodbury team’s robot features a conveyor system that gathers balls into a high-speed spring wheel to shoot them into the baskets, which will be set at different heights, Gryzwa said.

“(Ours) looks like a pitching machine on wheels,” he said.

Gryzwa said it’s fun to engage the students and help them “see what opportunities they’ll have when they get older.”

“We help them take their vision and make it into reality,” he said. “The whole notion of it is to mimic real-world engineering.”

For those who can’t make it to the competition, the Math and Science Academy plans to host a live webcast of the event.

The students must find sponsors to help fund the program, Gryzwa said, and the Minnesota State High School League’s involvement has given the event a sports-like atmosphere.

Gryzwa, a medical-device engineer, said he doesn’t do “hands-on” engineering anymore.

“So it’s fun for me to go back and build stuff,” he said.

 

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