They are known as S.W.A.T, the Smithville Warriors Advancing Technology Team. Their charge is to build a robot that can outwit opposing robots.

This year, their robot can be called the Terminator, after making it all the way to the quarter finals at the Championship Competition April 19 in Atlanta, Ga., but their machine doesn’t have one mean spark in its circuitry. It has helped a team of students, teachers and parents learn about working through challenges together. Their program is all about teamwork and gracious professionalism — a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community.

The concept comes from FIRST, “For Inspiration of Recognition, Science and Technology”, and its robotics competition program helps schools team up with sponsors to build robots that compete against each other to accomplish specific objectives. FIRST was founded in 1992 by Dean Kamen, best known as the inventor of the Segway human transporter.

Although this is only the third year Smithville has taken part in the competition, their S.W.A.T team has won regional events in Kansas City and Oklahoma, earning them a spot in the championships. That is quite a feat, considering 1,500 teams made up of 37,000 students competed this year.

Above left, S.W.A.T. robot drivers Brandon Lawrence and Zach Bargman focus intently on the match, while Coach Greg Krueger, foreground provides some direction. Right, the entire team poses after winning the 2008 Oklahoma City Regional Competition March 22. Although not everyone attends the competitions, the team includes 44 students and mentor.

Above left, S.W.A.T.’s first robot built for the 2006 season for the game “Aim High” shot foam balls at a target. The machine was winner of the Rookie Inspriation Award at the 2006 Chicago Regional Competition. Their 2007 robot placed inflated rings on a moving peg during the “Rack N’ Roll” game. Above right, drivers for the 2008 season include Zach Bargman, left, and Brandon Lawrence. They hold the champion trophy after winning the 2008 Oklahoma City Regional competition in March. Earlier the same month, the team won the Kansas City Regional.

What the team is asked to do is just short of phenomenal.

Senior Brandon Lawrence is this year’s team captain. “Every year they come up with a new game. On January 5, they released the game for the year and webcast it through NASA. From that day on, each team has six weeks to build a robot. Each robot kit ships on the same day, so each team has the same amount of time,” he says.

This year’s robot resembles a 120-pound forklift with an upper arm. It’s sole purpose is simple: pick a large 40-inch-diameter inflated ball off of a high shelf, travel around an oval track with other robots without losing the ball, hurdle the ball over an overpass as many times as possible in two minutes, then place the ball back on the shelf. Points are given for accomplishing specific parts of the race.
Admittedly, the process is more complicated than it sounds, considering each team receives a standard kit of parts – motors, sprockets, drive assemblies – and no instructions.

According to vocational agriculture teacher and mentor Johnny Viebrock, the only metal FIRST provides is for a simple frame. “Everything is fabricated in our shop, so no two robots are the same,” he says.
During the six-week building period, students divide into departments and are paired to do tasks.

The electronics and programming, fabrication and design, and business departments all have their own assignments. Scott Vitek, wrestling coach, technology teacher and point man for the robotics team, says all the departments come together every Monday to share their progress and offer new ideas. Students then break into smaller teams to accomplish specific task. A freshman is often paired with a more experienced senior to work on the three-dimensional software design, fabricate a part, or develop the team Web site.

Patrick Quade is one of many students on the fabrication group. After the robot is designed using CAD software, Quade and fellow students build a wooden mock-up. “Wood is easier to work with in trying to figure out what parts go where. Once we have the dimensions, we start cutting metal,” says Quade, a senior.
Although S.W.A.T is made up of 44 people, 11 are mentors. About 22 of the students do most of the project work.

Evan Grusenmeyer is a freshmen who became interested because his older brother is a past team captain. “Every night we spend four or more hours on the robot, then on the weekends at least 5-6 hours each day. It is a commitment.”
Grusenmeyer has the job of robo coach, programming the TV remote-like control to tell the robot to do simple tasks like going forward or backward. “We supercharged our remote this year, adding extra LED’s to give it more range and wider area,” he says. “It takes eight 9-volt batteries I have to carry around.”

According to Vitek, the students are genuinely interested in the robotics program. “Before, students were waiting for the bell to ring,” he says. “Here we are working late at night and we’re telling the fellas ‘We got to go home, I’ve got a family to go home to.’ It is so unique to see people who want to stay around and work on something that is so incredibly involved and challenging.”
Vitek agrees stress levels are high, but that is expected when students and mentors set their goals so high with a limited six weeks to design, fabricate and build a robot.

Things do go wrong, but the program is designed with overcoming obstacles in mind. Parts are made incorrectly and must be refabricated. The time restraints and complexity force teams to work together.
“One of the ways we keep the stress levels down is by keeping the communication we have with each other open,” said Grusenmeyer. “Working as a group, having one person drill while another clamps a part, takes cooperation.”

Although Grusenmeyer has three more years of involvement in the FIRST program, Lawrence and Quade are considering what happens after graduation. Their experience with S.W.A.T has shaped those plans.
Lawrence became involved in developing the S.W.A.T team Web site to promote the team and help in fundraising. He enjoyed the work and began working on the school’s Web site. He thought about pursuing Web design until approached by representatives from Oklahoma State University during the Oklahoma Regional FIRST competition.

“They were impressed with my hand-eye coordination as our robot driver and asked if I had ever considered becoming a crane operator,” he said. “Now, I’m actually looking into that.”
Quade plans on attending Kansas State University to pursue a degree in engineering. The robotics program has inspired him to look into the mechanical aspect of engineering. Other students have similar stories.

Both Quade and Gruesenmeyer are FFA students and the vocational agriculture program has a well-equipment shop at Smithville, but Viebrock says 98 percent of the students are urban and the remaining 2 percent come from ranchettes with small acreages.

“At the time we were approached by the Kaufmann Foundation about getting involved in FIRST, I was wanting to include more science and technology in my curriculum and the kids were not interested in the biology aspect,” said Viebrock. “I would love to teach these kids about animal science and livestock, but they are not interested. This is something of interest that keeps my program viable. I want students to recognize their idea of agriculture is not American Gothic, but involves advanced technologies like GPS and automated harvesting. There is a tremendous application for what we are exposing the students to in this robotics program.”

Vitek and Viebrock considered the $15,000 three-year grant the Kaufmann Foundation offered and they could not pass up the program.

Now S.W.A.T has sponsorships from Harley-Davidson, Aquilla and other Kansas City businesses.

The sponsorships are necessary to compete. The robot kit alone cost $6,000 and extra parts can easily cost another $1,000. Each additional competition costs $4,000, plus travel expenses for the team. Smithville High School provides the shop, but no funding. Since S.W.A.T went to the national competition last month, their season was twice as long, meaning additional cost and more fundraising. Viebrock says the team picked up many supporters who raised money for their Atlanta trip after they won the regional competitions.

Nationwide, sponsors for teams and supplies read like a Who’s Who list of Fortune 500 companies. Some teams are as large as 140 and some as small as three. No matter the team size, to recognize the technical and life skills individual students have gained, all who competed in 2008 have access to more than 550 scholarships from 108 universities, associations and corporations affiliated with FIRST.

“I’ve been in education and athletics for 18 years,” says Vitek. “This has been one of the most unique, exiting and adrenaline rush-type activities I’ve ever been involved in and we’ve just been doing it for three years.”
More on the S.W.A.T team can be found at www.smithvillehighrobotics.com. To view online videos of the team’s competitions, go to www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/team.php?team=1806.