Lee Erwin Reporting
lerwin@clarksvillenow.com
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – A group of students from local public and private schools as well as homeschooler’s are hard at work on construction of robotic machines as they prepare to compete in the Blade Runner competition at Lipscomb University on Saturday, October 18.
The close to 20 students are known as MARIO, for Montgomery Area Robotics Intelligence Operations. Around 10 of the students are on the robotics team and the remaining students are on the business side of the operation which is known as the BEST or Boosting Engineering Science and Technology.
There’s the MARIO robotics side of the group who are building the robot for the competition and the MARIO Inc. who are sort of the marketing side of the group who are going to be selling the robot and promoting the efforts of the students at the competition.
President of the MARIO Cub, Matt Klomfas, talked about the competition. “The competition is called Blade Runner. Basically the competition goal is to be semi -trucks and we have to go over either rough roads or a bridge and carry supplies like large and small turbine blades,” said Klomfas.
The students were given boxes of assorted parts like wood, PVC pipe, metal rods and metal plates. There were also provided some electronic parts such as motors, servos , sensors, wiring and a cortex for programming and controller for operating the robot.