CYBORGs robotic team heads to competition this weekend

MOUNT WASHINGTON -- The Creative Young Builders of Robotic Gadgets are at it again -- building robots and creating plans to help save the earth.

Mallory Bilger

The Creative Young Builders of Robotic Gadgets will be competing in Ohio this weekend.

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This weekend the CYBORGs will travel to Wright-Patterson Air Force Bace in Ohio to compete in the FIRST LEGO League United States Open Championship.

According to the Kentucky FIRST LEGO League Web site, FLL is a program that combines engineering, computer programming, problem-solving, researching, presenting and teamwork into an eight-week period. Teams work to build and program a robot to complete nine tasks on a competition table in a 2.5 minute robot round. Teams also meet with technical judges, who evaluate their robot design, programming and their problem-solving strategies; project judges, who look at their research project, which is tied to the challenge theme; and teamwork judges, who evaluate how well the group functioned as a team.

The team is made up of local youth Stephen Rhodes, Austin Eschner, Mike Vance, Cody Stemle, Grant Holloway, Kyle Eschner and Ginny Rhodes and is led by coaches David Echsner and Becky Rhodes.

The CYBORGs will be competing against 60 other teams from across the United States.

Vance said he and his team have worked diligently on the robot’s consistency so it will hit its targets on the competition table.

"It's still a work in progress," he said.

Stephen Rhodes said the robot was built with an internal tracking system that allows it to identify its location, which helps set it apart from other competition robots.

The team's research project, which the CYBORGs presented to Sen. Gary Tapp, includes the energy conservation idea of using hydrogen fuel cells to create energy for private residences. Although team members said the systems would initially be expensive to purchase and install, the units would come down in price as they become more common.

"It's basically water-in, water-out," one team member said.

The CYBORGs will spend their weekend at Wright-Patterson AFB in hopes of winning the championship.