Linn-Mar Robotics Team Headed to Kansas City for Rebound Rumble

When you hear the word robotics, you might think of eerily life-like Japanese replicas of the human form.

Though these often creepy looking machines don’t yet seem to have any practical purpose yet, that doesn’t mean the pursuit of robotics is impractical.

The l robotics head coach Dan Niemitalo said the sport of robotics competition is anything but impractical, as it teaches real life technical skills and encourages teamwork within teams and among them.

"Nobody really cares that you might be facing each other," he said. "They encourage gracious professionalism, so (other teams) kind of bend over backwards for you."

Right now, the team is headed off to Kansas City to compete in the Greater Kansas City Regional FIRST Robotics Competition.

Each year the rules and objectives of the competition changes. This year, teams have to design robots to compete in a game called rebound rumble, where two teams of three robots play a game similar to basketball.

"It is pretty exciting," said Niemitalo. "It is a full contact sport. You got fans yelling, you have a big screen. I compare it to a big basketball game."

More than 50 teams will be competing at the regional competition, but only 16 will be able to progress to the next round of tournaments.

Those that progress aren’t necessarily the teams with the highest scores, though. Niemitalo said awards are given out for a wide variety of efforts, including best looking robot, the team that best promotes science in their school and best rookie team, among many others.

Niemitalo said this rewards the various efforts that the approximately 50 members of the team performs, some of which design robots, design the robotics website and do robotics outreach within the school.

But Niemitalo said even if they do progress, they won’t be able to make it to the next round or the national championship. Since they have a limited budget and the tournament costs $5,000 to enter, which covers the cost of many robot part, their season will end here no matter what. He added that most teams only compete in one tournament.

Winning isn’t everything, though. Niemitalo said the very participation in robotics helps students gain skills for future careers, whether that be in engineering, web design or communications.

Team member and Linn-Mar High School senior Douglas Lindmer attended robotics team meetings back when his older brother was a member.

He said he was fascinated with the robotics team, and, since joining in 2009, his work on the team has given him a leg up in his engineering career. 

Due to his work with the team in designing and operating robots, Lindmer said he has received a scholarship to pursue electrical engineering at the University of Iowa next year, in addition to an internship with Rockwell Collins this summer.

So what began as an interest in robots, has helped him become miles ahead of most electrical engineering students.

"My experience with the program has given me a lot of technical experience and opportunities to help me in my career," he said.