1993 U.S. First competition (part 1)

In February 1993, I went to New Hampshire for a robotics competition called U.S. FIRST. That was 30 years ago this past week.

The whole thing started out (for me) during my senior year of high school, when my calculus teacher Tom Witek said he was going to start a robotics club. Apparently, I wasn’t busy enough that year, so I thought I’d check it out.

Over the next few weeks, more details came out. Our high school was partnering with Baxter Laboratories’ Renal Division to design a wireless robot, which the Baxter engineers would build, and students would control.

The task seemed straightforward enough – using remote controls, get the robot to capture large, air filled kickballs (worth 5 points each) and small, water-filled rubber balls (worth one point each), then deposit them in your goal. The team with the most points in their goal after two minutes wins. That sounded easy enough.

In practice, though, designing it was far was simple. We had *no idea* what we were doing, and we relied heavily on the Baxter engineers’ expertise to understand what was feasible. We settled on a durable design with a low center of gravity that focused on collecting small balls.

Baxter built the machine, then picked two pairs of students to pilot it. I was one of the four, along with Brian Becker and Ken Modde. (Sorry, I can’t remember the fourth.)
On Wednesday, February 25th, we all met at the school, took a limousine down to O’Hare airport, and flew to Boston. From there it was a one-hour drive to Nashua, New Hampshire, where we checked into a hotel.

I roomed with Brian. While we were far from out-of-control as far as teenagers go, we *were* still just two high school guys far from home. Here’s a picture of him doing a flip onto this bed.