The (Worcester) Telegram & Gazette featured Worcester Polytechnic Institute's (WPI) 9th annual RoboNautica competition twice in its Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009 edition. A news article and the weekly "College Town" column reported how more than 250 elementary and middle school students from across the Northeast participated in the event on Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009, in WPI's Harrington Auditorium.
Sponsored by Raytheon Network Centric Systems, RoboNautica is Massachusetts' official state championship tournament of FIRST LEGO League, and it showcases the talents of hundreds of children ages 9-14 from across the Northeast region. (Out-of-state students were eligible to participate in the Massachusetts tournament.) Team 1044 of Lexington, Mass. ("Battery Powered Picklejar Heads") won the Champion's Award, which is RoboNautica's top honor.
This year's theme was "Smart Move." With six competition tables, the action at RoboNautica was non-stop from the first match to the exciting elimination finals. Teams created robots to simulate important challenges in transportation including gaining access to things, places, and people as well as avoiding and surviving impacts.
To qualify for RoboNautica, all participating teams gave successful performances earlier this year at one of five regional tournaments held throughout the state. A total of 64 teams competed.
By hosting RoboNautica and several other annual robotics events, WPI has become the proving ground for hundreds of would-be robotics champions in New England.
- A preview story about RoboNautica was featured in the Dec. 19, 2009 (Fitchburg) Sentinel and Enterprise.
- Visit the RoboNautica website for more information.
Also, read more about WPI's first-in-the-nation robotics engineering major
