Robot

continued from page 6 and then into the final four and later for the ultimate top award But the biggest award is the BEST Award, and this is the award that the KCA team took home

While all of the students are overwhelmingly impressive, 12year-old Nicholas Williams is a CEO in the making After just a few moments of his smooth marketing and sales pitch, one could easily imagine the bright future that awaits him

"The first thing we did was have a strategy meeting " said Nicholas Williams "We went through and looked at all of the scoring options and we chose to get the corn, the seeds and the valve After that, we started brainstorming We threw out a bunch of ideas and then we evaluated them We came up with a design that we knew would end up something like this (pointed to the robot) Then we started prototyping where about five members of the team would come over and work for about two hours on the robot

In order to save kit material provided by BEST Robotics, they mae a prototype robot out of scrap plywood, cardboard, and duct tape That process took around three weeks and then they were able to see how their model was going to translate to a fully-functional robot "

Jacob Williams said that there were over 20 members on the team and they selected quite a few drivers to practice maneuvering the robot

"We got into the semifinals pretty easily" said Jacob Williams "Then an old team that some of us were on before we started this team, we actually helped them out with their robot stuff and then they booted us out of the finals They were the team right above us in the semifinals But because we got enough robot points and with all of our other stuff, we got the BEST Award "

Nicholas Williams said that the brothers on Duke Street did two production shifts on the robot each day along with assignments each night except for Wednesdays and Sundays With driving teams, exhibit teams and notebook teams, the students put in a massive amount of time on the project

"It's real stressful and intense, but it's worth it when you end up winning " said Nicholas Williams

The KCA Robotics team has something to be really proud of Mr. and Mrs. Chisum that once lived in that house would be mighty proud of the students there now