Excellence Award winner: John Bapst

    This award recognizes the overall best robot at the competition.  The robot, built, programmed, documented, and driven by the brother/sister combination of Duncan and Tiffany Waanders, was recognized as the overall best robot on the field on Saturday, Feb. 18.  This is determined by the combination of their overall standing in the qualification rounds (they were 5th out of 40; Cape Elizabeth was 6th, and Hampden was 1st). Also considered was the quality of their design and their documentation, by the skill with which they could program their robot to score points on its own, and by the degree to which they could score points outside of a competition on a practice field.  Finally, they were interviewed by a panel of seven judges, who praised the thoroughness of the robot’s design and it’s name, Asimov. In fact, the robot was designed with Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in mind, including goals of not hurting other robots, people, and with fail-safes that would come into play if it was on the verge of hurting itself.

   When you see Tiffany and Duncan in the halls next week, please offer them your congratulations!
It was a great season overall, and this win means that our team, including a few supporting members are invited to compete at the world competition in April being held in Louisville Kentucky.

   Well done, all!