By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com

The Stellar Robotics Club unveiled its creation to a waiting public at the Ontario Christian Church Tuesday evening.

Comprised of 13 students from area high schools as well as 10 volunteers, the Stellar Robotics Club built the robot named Guido in order to compete in the 2015 Recycle Rush game.

Part of Guido’s unveiling included a demonstration of what tasks the robot will be doing in the Recycle Rush game which includes picking up totes, recycle bins, and swimming pool noodles which represents litter.

Operating the as the robot’s drive team were students Gabby Allen and Ciaran DeYoe.

Allen, who is a homeschooled freshman from the Crestline area, explained how the drive team was selected for the Recycle Rush game.

“For the first few weeks of the build season we worked on building, and then just a few weeks ago we made our drive team decision, and that is whoever we decided works the best together, who drives the best, who operates the best, and that’s our team for the competition,” Allen said.

“My personal favorite was learning just how some of it works,” Allen said. “A couple months ago I would have looked at that mechanism and said, ‘Oh that’s a robot, what does it do, how does it work?’ But being one of the programmers and drivers I have learned so much from it, and that has been my favorite (part), just learning everything and doing the programming.

The Stellar Robotics team began training and building Guido on Jan. 3 and took students an average of 20 hours a week over a six-and-one-half week build period.

Lexington student Jacob Reese explained how they gave their creation life.

“For this robot we started with a kit of parts that was given to each team. As a rookie team we got a few extra parts to make our first drive train, which is the base of the robot that every robot has; that includes the motors and the electronics systems,” Reese said. “From there we had to design what goes on that. Next was brainstorming on how we are going to play the game, and what we are going to make to play the game.”

“After that part it was all designing. We used CAD to design the robot. That gave us the blue prints to build it. We manufactured some parts, we ordered other parts, and some parts we purchased from our sponsors who then built the parts at their facilities,” Reese continued.

Mentor Chantal DeYoe explains that while the team is comprised from students from Mansfield, Ontario, Shelby, Ashland, Lucas, Bellville, Lexington, Mt. Gilead, Galion, and Crestline that they want to expand into other schools in the surrounding communities.

“We are hoping that tonight really introduce this program to the community in a big way. We want to be open to all schools in this area, we want students to join the team from anywhere in the area, and we want to become big enough that we can have two teams from this area.”

After the unveiling, the students had until midnight to make last-minute changes to the robot before being put in storage until their first regional competition in Pittsburgh during the first week of March where they will compete against teams from across the nation. Once that competition is complete the robot will compete in a regional competition in Cleveland during the third week of March. If the students make it past that round they will compete against 600 teams from 17 countries around the world for the championship in Saint Louis in late April.

To learn more about the Stellar Robotics Club, and for links to a live stream of the Recycle Rush matches visit www.firstroboticsmansfield.com.