Bibb County High School Students Build Competition Robot

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – It’s a life sized robot that can catch and shoot a ball, and Bibb County students put it together.

For Jordan Lasker, it’s become family.

“I like to call the robot my baby because I gave it a mind.”

And this thing definitely has a mind of it’s own.

A group of about 30 kids–Team RoboBibb–came together to build this robot, and compete in the upcoming FIRST robotics Competition.

The students are from multiple Bibb County high schools.

Team RoboBibb is competing against more than 60 schools here in the Southeast to move the robot in certain directions and have it do certain things to win the competition.

The robot will actually catch a ball, drop it into it’s arms, and punch it into the goal–and it’s all controlled with a joystick.

Lasker says it took a lot of teamwork to complete the project.

“If I didn’t have my teammates I don’t think we were be where we are now.”

And Joe Finkelstein, who sponsors the robotics club at Howard, says it was truly a group effort.

“These guys are amazing the way they picked it up and went with it,” said Finkelstein. “A lot of cooperation. Behind the scenes you know we had to do marketing–they raised money. We were lucky to get it…but we also had to get money from companies that kind of stepped up to be partners with us.”

The rules say the majority of the robot must be out of commission for about a month prior to the competition.

Until then, students like Lasker will have to deal with missing a member of the family.

The team partnered with members of the community as well as Mercer Engineering students to accomplish the feat.

The competition is still a month away.

In the coming month, the team will build a second, scaled-down version of the robot to practice driving before the competition.