Team Greenville prepares for regional FIRST meet
March 1, 1999     Greenville Herald Banner

Team Greenville, comprised of students from Greenville High School and engineers from Raytheon Systems Company, will compete in a three-day regional FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition at the NASA Space Center in Cocoa Beach, Fla. beginning Thursday.

Team Greenville has worked for the past six weeks to create their 1999 robot entry which will participate in this year's game, Double Trouble.  The contest will feature robots forming allies with an opposing team in order to compete.

About 300 FIRST teams from throughout the nation will compete in a series of regional competitions and at the national competition to be held at Epcot at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

"Right now, the students may not appreciate having to form these allies, but this is the way the corporate world works.  I think they will enjoy the competition this year," said Paul Nall, third year engineer with Team Greenville.

Four teams, paired in two alliances, will compete in each match.  Each alliance works together to try and beat the other alliance by scoring the most points in a two-minute match.

After all the teams at the regional competition have completed a series of qualification matches, the teams will be ranked.  The top eight teams will then choose allies from among the remaining teams and form eight aliances that will not change during the duration of the event.

These eight alliances will then compete in a best two out of three series of elimination matches until an event-winning alliance emerges.

"We had to build a machine that will not only be competitive, but be attractive to another team when final alliances are made," said Ricky Torrance, lead Team Greenville engineer.

A number of major American corporations including Raytheon, Xerox, Honeywell, and Proctor and Gamble have played an important role in this competition since its inception in 1989.

Teaching match and science skills from an engineering perspective, learning cooperation between the generations and exposing students to career choices are the interaction aspects of the program.

"Students are taught how to take their classroom knowledge and use it to create a product.  It's very exciting to watch students go from brainstorming to design to actually finishing the robot," said faculty sponsor, Vanessa Pope.

"Our team is unique to other FIRST teams," said GHS senior, Tim Oliver.  "The engineers don't build the robot, they teach us how to create all the parts and then as a team we put it all together."

The volunteer engineers on the team work each evening after work and weekends with students to complete the six weeks project.

Greenville High School students involved in the project are:  Curtis Brancheau, Darby Collier, Brian Deuell, Josh Ebrahim, Chris Gerard, Amanda Howell, Lora Hunter, Buddy Kimberlin, Ryan Marcum, Andy McClellen, Aaron Nall, Tim Oliver, Melissa Park, Jentry Powell, Stacy Rhodes, Keegan Ripp, Chris Thatcher, Josh Thatcher, Shaunna Torrance, Justin Wineinger, and Matt Wineinger.

Raytheon Systems Company employee volunteers are: Ricky Torrance, Will Reese, John Hodapp, Patrick Hodapp, Paul Nall, Danny Oliver, Gus Gonzalez, Monty Wineinger, Gabe Snyder, Steve Maxwell and Max McCall.

After the regional competition, the robot will be shipped immediately to Orlando, Fla. for the national competition at Epcot.

Greenville has seven national award titles earned throughout the past six years of competition, including National Quarterfinalist in 1998.