There’s silence in the library for a moment, broken only by the hum of pneumatics. A robot sits in front of a wooden goalpost, held in place by two students. This will be the first testing of the robot’s capacity to make the shot, launching a 2-foot diameter ball over the heads of the onlookers. The robot is an impressive feat of engineering, especially considering that it was built from scratch in less than a month. In less than ideal conditions. By high school students.

The Ossining High School Engineering Club, officially registered by the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) as the “O-Bots”, built its first robot in 2012 for that year’s FRC challenge. Their robot had to be able to perform tasks both autonomously and while being remotely controlled, and extra points were given for any team able to control their robot with an XBOX Kinect. Even though it was only the O-Bot’s first competition, they were able to successfully use the Kinect and won the Rookie All-Star Award, moving on to the World Championships.

They had a similarly successful second year, building a robot to climb a pyramid and (essentially) play ultimate frisbee. As stated on their website (o-bot.org), “The robot has the ability to shoot frisbees up to fifty feet with consistent accuracy as well as climb multiple levels of the pyramid.” The team won the Engineering Inspiration Award, and once again moved on to the championships in St. Louis, Missouri.

This year’s competition requires robots to pick up, toss, and pass an inflatable ball on the playing field, along with the normal autonomous and remote-controlled modes. The club has been working non-stop, staying at school as late as 6 o’clock, sometimes even later. They’ve also been working during the weekends, with some of the club’s members bringing parts of the robot home to continue to tinker with. Guided by Mr. Albrect and Mr. Scinta, the club has grown from five students to over 50 members. Yet even with such a large number of participants, there’s plenty of work to go around. Graduated members of the club often return to help out during building season, and the local branch of IBM has chipped in plenty of times in the past. Dr. Kenneth B. Ocheltree of IBM comes almost every day during the building season to help with the coding and electronics. David Earle, graduated member and sophomore at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, spent his winter break teaching newer members of the club computer aided design. This knowledge of CAD is being put to good use, making use of the team’s new 3D printer.

Picking up numerous grants for their impressive performances, team 4122 (their other official name) has been sponsored by IBM, JCPenney, NASA, Entergy, Ossining Matters, The Tuscan Grill, and Bucknell University. The generosity of these sponsors doesn’t just support the team’s FRC endeavors though; after the robot season is over the team begins to work on their electric car, having participated in the local rally numerous times. The club’s resources may keep growing, but both FRC and the rally are difficult challenges for the O-Bots.

As the ball soars over the goalposts, launched by the robot’s pneumatic catapult, some cheers are loosed by the surrounding club members. The trajectory wasn’t quite satisfactory, so the air pressure is readjusted. The robot’s code and structure stills needs to be finalized, but this marks a step towards success. It looks like the O-Bots are going to have another great year.