Pinoy youths shine in US robotics tilt

A 20-person team of Philippine Science High School (PSHS) students and their mentors has qualified to take part in the FIRST Robotics competition in Atlanta, Georgia this April 16 to 18 pitting teams from 48 US states as well as teams from Brazil, Canada ,Chile, Germany, Israel and Mexico.

But if sufficient funding fails to be raised, the PSHS team dubbed as Lagablab will be representing the Philippines and playing as the only team from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with only as few as 10 team members. With this reduced number, they shall be operating Larry Labuyo, a robot they themselves designed and programmed, in robotic contests at the Georgia Dome with over a thousand science and technologically savvy teenagers.

The Philippine teams’ participation in this tech Olympiad for youth, whose acronym FIRST means For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, announced at a press briefing held recently by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) at the PSHS main campus in Diliman, Quezon City. The DOST operates the PSHS system spread in various campuses throughout the country.

At the briefing, DOST Science Education Institute Director, Dr. Ester Ogena told reporters that the Lagalab team’s participation in the Atlanta robotics tournament was due to the fact that it had earlier qualified in the FIRST Robotics Competition elimination held last March 26 to 28 at the Manoa campus of the University of Hawaii.

PSHS team Lagablab displayed its strategic and robotic skills in contests that involved 33 other teams, all from US high schools. Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle and Lt. Gov. James Aiona watched as the participants guided their programmed robots through various games that involved mazes and moves somewhat similar to that of basketball.

All the robots’ programs were written by the teams’ various members with LABVIEW as the developer tool. A proprietary program of the Texas-based National Instruments Corp., it is a software used by professional programmers to develop software to operate machines in high tech and highly automated factories.

LABVIEW is also the software the US National Aeronautics and Space Authority uses to develop programs to guide a number of operations in space shuttles.

The contests were designed to simulate moves a robot would have to make if it were to travel on the moon. All robots used a wheel rolling over rogolith, a material which is almost frictionless.

The objective: place as many “moon rocks” into the opponent’s trailer within 2 minutes and 15 seconds. In one game, Larry Labuyo dumped seven rocks into the opposing team’s trailer within three seconds.

Team Labuyo finished 17th of 33 qualifying it for the Georgia championship with its record in Hawaii of five wins, five losses, and one tie.

At the briefing, DOST Undersecretary Fortunato de la Peña told reporters that Larry Labuyo had already been shipped to Georgia from Hawaii to cut down on shipping costs. He said that the DOST had already raised from various donors P1.5 million to ensure that at least half of the 20-person team would take part in the finals.

He said another P1.5 million had been verbally promised already by other donors as of the press briefing.

At the briefing, DOST Secretary Alabastro told reporters that PSHS Team Lagablab’s performance in Hawaii showed that the Philippines could be globally competitive in the field of robotics. She praised the contest as an activity that could encourage more Filipinos to take up careers in science and technology. –Ike Suarez, Correspondent, Manila Times