At a mock soccer competition at Ball Gymnasium this weekend, Muncie's star player Palindrome scored in the first minute of the game, but after getting a ball caught between his wheels, couldn't maneuver.
Palindrome is a robot, built by Muncie students on the robot builders team PhyXTGears — pronounced "fixed gears." They had their third annual robotic sports competition Sunday, which attracted 18 teams from across Indiana.
The teams are part of the organization For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. FIRST was created in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. It works with NASA to create a new game each year for the robots to play. This year's game is called Breakaway and is based on soccer.
Maya Leblanc, a junior at Indiana Academy, said she wanted to call the robot Smurf because of its blue color. Trent Koch, a junior on the team, said they decided to call it Palindrome instead, because it's two-sided. Palindrome describes any word or phrase that can be spelled backwards and forwards.
This year's PhyXTGears robot is 28 inches wide by 24 inches long and 17 inches tall. It is designed with kickers on both ends.
After they learn what the game is, every team member comes up with an idea for a robot.
"It was my overall idea to make the robot so it could go both directions," Koch said.
Putting kickers on both sides also was his idea.
The purpose of Sunday's event was to work out any bugs the mechanics or software of the robot may have.
This was the case of PhyXTGears. The team had to spend the first hour of the event working out a software problem having to do with the drive program, which lets the joystick communicate with the robot.
LeBlanc is on the build team of PhyXTGears, but she said she does many different things.
"I think this year's going to be really good," LeBlanc said. "Once we can get the drive mechanism and joysticks and the programming working I think we'll have a really strong robot."
Like LeBlanc, Koch is officially on the build team but also does a little bit of everything. He has been the driver for the last two years and is in the running to do it again this year.
Every robot has a driver and an operator. The operator controls the functions of the robot.
Koch decided to join the team because his older brother was involved.
"I liked to come and see what they were doing and I thought it was really cool," he said.
The playing field for the match was broken into three sections by two large bumps. Each bump is split in two by a tunnel.
Three teams work together against three other teams to move and kick six balls into the goals.
While trying to score the teams have to worry about being attacked by an opposing robot and tipping over when driving over a bump.
The real competition will be at the Boilermaker Regional, which will be held at Purdue University in a few weeks. Palindrome has to be shipped to Purdue no later than Tuesday.
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