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In preparation for the March competition, the Magruder students have been paired with researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to build a robot in only six weeks that will solve a designated engineering problem or perform an assigned task.

Joined by U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Director William Jeffrey, the students demonstrated what their 2006 robot is capable of doing.

The students’ parents and officials watched as the club members put a ball-handling robot from the 2006 FIRST competition, aptly titled ‘‘Aim High,” through its paces. During that challenge, the teams had to create a robot of the athletic variety that would score points by shooting foam balls through hoops and into floor goals.

Somewhat reminiscent of an extraordinarily large vacuum cleaner, the Magruder robot sucked up a small foam ball, lifted it through a conveyer belt, dropped it into a basket compartment in the back, and then — after some steering — released a hatch which let it roll into the goal.

‘‘We’d just lower the ramp and hope it went into the goal,” Phil Glaser, co-vice president of the Magruder Robotics Club, said.

‘‘It’s not the finest piece of engineering, but we did fine,” he added.

Rashad Carlyle, who served as president of the club last year and is its secretary this year, said the Magruder team placed 28th amongst the 64 teams that competed and third amongst the rookie teams.

‘‘Things are looking pretty good this year,” he said. ‘‘We’re off to a better start. Last year, we got off to a slow start because we didn’t really know what we were doing.

‘‘But this year we actually know which direction we want to go in, so there’s a lot more certainty in our direction,” he added.

The 2007 FIRST challenge, titled ‘‘Rack ‘N’ Roll,” requires students to design and build a robot that can stack inflated colored tubes on pegs in a particular configuration in less than two and a half minutes.

‘‘There’s three levels and you get points by how many are in a consecutive row or column,” Lauren Miller, president of the club, said, adding club members plan to give their robot four-wheel drive to increase its mobility. ‘‘You also gain bonus points by raising another robot or your robot off the ground. If you have it above four inches, you gain 15 bonus points and if you have it over 12 [inches], you gain 30 bonus points. So that’s the scoring and it’s three versus three robots, so you have an alliance team of three, which is nice because you can distribute your strengths and weaknesses to have the best game strategy.”

Miller, a senior at Magruder, said being a part of the robotics club has solidified her interest in engineering. For her final FIRST challenge with Magruder, she said she is looking forward to what she hopes will be a great competition.

‘‘This competition is very entertaining,” Miller said. ‘‘It’s challenging, but it’s gonna be a lot of fun. This year, I think we are a lot more well-prepared, we have the support of [our] NIST mentors and the Department of Commerce. They’ve made it a lot easier, so we’ve been able to focus more on building the best robot we can. So, I’m looking forward to a great performance this year.”

Gutierrez said he is extremely impressed by what the Magruder students have accomplished and is looking forward to seeing how the team fares in this year’s competition.

‘‘[I am most impressed by] the professionalism, the maturity,” he said. ‘‘Obviously, the understanding of the technical side of things, which is the leadership they’re providing, is they’re showing students that math and sciences and engineering can lead to some very, very cool outcomes.”

He added that the students are ‘‘setting a great example” of what the future might hold for American technology.

Melissa Cloyd, a technology education teacher and the robotic club’s sponsor, said she is proud of the Magruder team, which is officially known as Team 1820 in the FIRST competition.

‘‘I feel very confident that they’re going to do very well,” she said. ‘‘They’ve already done so much better than last year, but last year was a learning year. They’re amazing students... they’re completely student-led and I can’t take credit for any of it — it’s all them. So, I’m excited to go to the competition and excited to see what they do.”

More information

The 2007 FIRST Competition is divided into six regional competitions around the United States. The Chesapeake Regional, which will include teams from Maryland, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and England, will be held at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis March 15-17.

Teams that score well or win a prize will go on to compete in the FIRST Championship, which is scheduled for April 12-14 in Atlanta, Ga.

For more information, visit www.usfirst.org.