Siemens-Sponsored Robotics Team Throttles Competition at Midwest Regionals

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., April 2 -- It has all the makings of a Cinderella story. The smaller, under-funded, under-rated team patched together with iron will, dedication and a little elbow grease, pitted against the perennial monsters of metal. The smaller team rises to the challenge and throttles the competition to advance to the elite circle of champions. The Cinderella in this story are the students of Rochester Adams High School and the Siemens VDO Automotive employees mentoring them.

The Siemens VDO Automotive-sponsored Rochester Adams High School FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition team won the program's Midwest Regional event, which took place March 20-22 on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

The Rochester Adams High School team (#245), nicknamed the Adam-Bots, scored the most points to take the championship on their inaugural run with an untried robot. Approximately 53 high school teams from across the nation competed in the Midwest Regional that pitted two alliances of two randomly partnered robots against each other in FIRST's "Stack Attack" challenge.

"Our Adam-Bots worked the floor like a Shaquille O'Neal 'Shaq Attack' at this competition's Stack Attack," said Siemens VDO Automotive's Paul Slaby, one of the company employees mentoring the Adam-Bots. "The Adam-Bots' robot proved to be reliable, fast and versatile. It was able to push boxes out of the opposing alliance's scoring zone and into ours, protect stacks and quickly maneuver on and around the obstacle ramp to get to strategic positions on the playing field."

The Stack Attack challenge places two alliances in competition to stack containers as high as possible while leaving remaining containers in their designated scoring area. During this time, opponents knock down or steal each other's containers. At the start of the challenge, robots are required to operate autonomously for 15 seconds using a variety of sensing strategies to detect field features, containers and other robots. Following this short segment, human players take control of the robots for the remainder of the match and teams will attempt to score points by having as many containers in their scoring zone as possible. The number of scoring containers is multiplied by a team's tallest stack to determine a final score.

The Adam-Bots worked well with their alliance partners to win four of their six matches, managing to earn the highest single match alliance point score of the Midwest Regional, as well as post the first tie of the 2003 FIRST Robotics Competition season.

"As this was the Adam-bots' first regional of the year, the team made numerous adjustments to improve the robot's performance and match strategy," said Slaby. "Hopefully, with some fine tuning and a little bit of help from the team's fairy godmother, the Rochester Adams High School team will piece together the next chapter of this Cinderella story in Grand Rapids next weekend."

The Adam-Bots are gearing up for the second and final regional event, the West Michigan Regional, being held at the Grand Center in Grand Rapids Mich. on April 3-5, 2003. The Rochester Adams High School team then heads to the 2003 FIRST Robotics Competition championship event being held at Reliant Park in Houston, Texas on April 10-12, 2003.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is a nationwide competition that teams professionals and students together to solve engineering design problems in an intense and competitive way. The 2003 competition will include 20,000 students on over 800 teams from every state, as well as Canada, Brazil and the United Kingdom.

Additional information about the FIRST Robotics Competition can be found on the Internet at www.usfirst.org .

Siemens VDO Automotive is a tier-one supplier of automotive electronic/electrical systems and components with applications covering gasoline and diesel powertrain technologies, safety and chassis systems, body electronics, plus interior products including infotainment systems. Worldwide sales reflecting fiscal year 2001/2002 totaled $8.5 billion. For more information: www.usa.siemensvdo.com .

Siemens AG , headquartered in Munich, is a leading global electronics and engineering company. Siemens and its subsidiaries employ 426,000 people in 192 countries and reported worldwide sales of $77.8 billion in fiscal 2002 (10/1/01 - 9/30/02).

The United States is Siemens' largest market in the world, with 14 of Siemens' worldwide businesses headquartered here and annual sales of $21.5 billion in fiscal 2002. The Siemens companies in the U.S. employ approximately 70,000 people in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Corporate headquarters for Siemens' U.S. businesses are located in New York City. For more information: www.usa.siemens.com .

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