Feb 28 2011
The Penfield High School was the venue for the Rochester Rally, an annual pre-competition event for the robotics team. A corporate team mentor for “Rolling Thunder”, Lee Drake describes it as an annual event for students to test-drive their robots for the 20th annual international competition.
Thousands of students enroll and participate in the competition sponsored by FIRST. The Penfield students have spent over five weeks working on their robots to emerge as winners of the Finger Lakes regional competition held at the Rochester Institute of Technology from March 3 to 5.
LogoMotion, the theme for 2011, involves hanging the maximum number of inflatable shapes on pegs made on a grid within 2 minutes, 15 seconds. Scores are based on how high the teams could hang the shapes.
The students would control their robots with computers and joysticks. The students also constructed the grids and accessories for the 54 ft long field.
Sponsor for the Penfield robotics team, director of finance for Harris RF, Chip Renzi claimed that it was good to see the participants eager and excited about engineering the robots. He also went on to state that some students could emerge at future designers at the company.
Source: http://www.penfield.edu/