Gloucester Alumni

By Kristen Grieco
Staff writer, Gloucester Daily Times

Sitting behind a classroom desk doesn't suit James McCarl, but he has no problem spending five hours a day building a 100-pound machine that can punch, kick and turn on a dime.

Five weeks ago, it was just a mass of metal, plastic and wires. Today, it's a robot, and it's ready to rumble.

The machine is the brainchild of the three dozen students on the Gloucester High School Robotics Team, and in the U.S. FIRST robotics competition next month, it will go head-to-head with robots from around the state to see who can zip around a track the fastest, toss an unwieldy 10-pound ball the highest and have the most success navigating the field without the help of a human.

"I don't have a liking of school, really," said McCarl last week as he stared into the wiry guts of the robot. "I did this because it's a hands-on course I could take to get credits and learn something from."

Filling a need

McCarl, a senior, plans to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and become a lobster fisherman after graduation, but envisions a career as an electrician or a plumber eventually, thanks in part to his experience on the team.

That's pretty much the hope of the team's coaches and mentors, who say they hope that exposure to engineering and electronics will give students an alternative to fishing as Gloucester's once preeminent occupation is in decline because of federal regulations squeezing the industry.

In fact, a Brandeis University study showed that FIRST team members are 50 percent more likely to go to college and four times as likely to pursue an engineering degree when compared to their peers.

McCarl is one of the most devoted members, teaching younger students his methods in hopes that the program will continue after he and some of the other core team members graduate. On the day the team received the robotics kit last month, McCarl spent 14 hours working on it.

Finding money

It's stories like his that have gotten school officials and the Gloucester Education Foundation, the funding source, excited about a team they were once hesitant about. The team receives $10,000 or more a year from the foundation through donations from local companies such as Comcast and Bomco.

When considering a robotics program last year, both the foundation's board and Superintendent Christopher Farmer fretted over the idea of spending that kind of money in a cash-strapped school district if it would only benefit, they estimated, half a dozen advanced placement physics students. What they got for their money — 10 times the participation from students all over the academic board — easily convinced them to fund the team again this year, said Joseph Rosa, vice president of the Gloucester Education Foundation.

"It's been a stellar program," said Rosa. "It's exactly the kind of hands-on technical experience that gets kids excited. It's really what the foundation is all about."

Real-world ties

The team works on different projects throughout the first half of the year to ready themselves for the whirlwind of building a full-scale robot to the U.S. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition specifications. Commonly, they try their hands on smaller-scale robots, figuring out the techniques they'll eventually use to make their big machine function.

The Gloucester squad's robot will compete in the U.S. FIRST state competition at Boston University's Agganis Arena on March 27 to 29.

In their first competition last year, the team placed 15th of the 50 teams competing. Coach and physics teacher Kurt Lichtenwald and his students hope, with more experience and money, to improve this year. They demonstrate the robot throughout the year, hoping to fill the coffers. Their wishlist includes cash to buy parts so they won't have to use odds and ends from around the classroom or deconstruct their old robot for parts.

Lichtenwald also challenges the students to create the types of projects that ground their work in the real word. Senior Ali Celli recalls having to rewire a miniature barking, tail-wagging toy puppy that one of Lichtenwald's children broke.

"It's investment," said Lichtenwald. "That's the key. Get the kids interested."

"I think it's essential as far as giving the kids something to work towards besides fishing," said team mentor and management consultant Peter Gaston, a Gloucester resident with a master's degree in robotics. "It's critical to a city in transition."

Hours with wires

The team spends countless hours during free periods and after school in the back of Lichtenwald's lab, working on intricate wiring and computer programming in an otherwise chaotic setting. Bottle rockets and PVC pipe submarines hang from the wall and tools and screws litter the tables.

"There's a core of kids that seem like they never leave," said Gloucester electrical engineer Bill Wells, one of the mentors. "They really own the robot. If something goes wrong, they get in there and fix it."

All of the students seem to have found a real home here in Lichtenwald's classroom, where they receive good-natured ribbing about ex-girlfriends from their coaches and demonstrate tools in the lab to curious teachers. Many spend four or five hours a day in the room, tinkering with technology. They try their ideas on small robots before transferring what they've learned to the biggest machine, the one ready for competition.

"It has nothing to do with science," said Celli, who has decided to pursue an engineering degree after her experience on the two-year old team. "It's hands-on wiring and brainstorming."

Lichtenwald would beg to differ, pointing out the math and physics behind gear rotation to a visitor. The students likely don't realize the intimate mingling of science and math to the work they're doing on the lab tables because they're not lectured and don't read a textbook. They figure things out through trial and error — and that type of skill is one that colleges and employers are looking for, Lichtenwald said.

He recalls one student who didn't have the grades to get into the engineering school of his choice, so he headed to the admissions office with a submarine he'd built in class. He got in.

Just last week, a Gloucester High alumnus who is now a military recruiter marveled at the robotics team's work, telling Lichtenwald that the technology they were learning was the same as what is being used in Iraq.

For team members like McCarl, however, the robotics team fills an even more basic need than being groomed for a post-high school career.

"It's really cool to be able to sit there and build something out of just metal, plastic and wires," he said.

About the robot

Size: 38 inches wide, 20 inches tall, 60 inches long.

Weight: More than 100 pounds.

Features:

Two "arms" with boxing gloves that punch.

Car-like steering.

Remote-control operation.

Mounted camera that allows steering from a computer.

Range finder to allow the robot to automatically stop and turn if it nears a wall or other object.