NJ Storming Robots High School Robotics Team Wins NASA Satellite Competition on ISS

    BRANCHBURG, NJ, February 11, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- A team of students at Branchburg-based Storming Robots won a worldwide space robotics competition on January 23rd. The Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge, held by MIT and NASA, took place aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The teams were tasked with writing software to control experimental volleyball sized satellites used by the astronauts. Every team was able to watch the entire event on Earth through a live feed from the ISS via NASA TV.

The competition had nine alliance teams from across the United States and three alliance teams from Europe. Each alliance team was made up of three teams that had made it to the finals in December of 2011. NASA awarded two winners: one from United States and one from Europe.

Storming Robots formed an alliance team with students from the River Hill High School in Maryland and the Rockledge High School in Florida. Our work posted the best cumulative score among three round-robin eliminations and one final round. All participants watched as their program ran on the satellites with astronauts Don Petit and Andre Kuipers aboard the ISS acting as referees.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, "It is just amazing to me what these high school students have accomplished. To program a robotic spacecraft with the precision of a NASA flight controller is quite a feat, but to have that ability, talent and discipline at such a young age is remarkable."

A quote from the MIT's ZeroRobotics' site - "... it is a student competition that takes "arena robotics" to new heights, literally. The robots are miniature satellites called SPHERES and the final competition of every tournament is aboard the International Space Station!" This competition is an intensive engineering/physics/programming centric program where the teams design software to automate small satellites aboard the International Space Station. The goal is to build the culture of pushing the limit of engineering and space exploration.

The competition schedule was very intensive. Programs were required to be submitted twice in October of 2011 to run in simulated competitions. It was then followed by an elimination round in early November. The top fifty-four teams advanced to the Semi-Final Round where they formed into alliance teams, made up of three teams each.

In the last three weeks of November, the teams diligently engaged in productive discussion for more math, coding and strategy enhancement using Storming Robots' internal online forum as the main media for communication. On December 2nd, the alliance team submitted code for another elimination round. The top 9 alliance teams were selected to enter the ISS Finals including Storming Robots team.

Each satellite contains its own power, propulsion, computing, and navigation equipment.

The Storming Robots team consists of five members: Avery Katko, 17; Matthew Goldman, 17, Bernardsville High School; Matthew Sicotte, 16, Somerville HS; Ben Brown, 17, Gills Saint Bernard High School; and Nikhil Shah, 16, Ridge High School. Many of these students have been attending Storming Robots for more than four years. Avery and Matthew have been with Storming Robots since 2005.

Currently Storming Robots has approximately 150 students enrolled. Some come from as far away as Newtown, PA and Spring Lake, NJ. Its director Elizabeth Mabrey is the founder for the hands-on robotics program which has made such great impact to these young people. Our goal is to fuel and reinforce computational thinking and engineering via hands-on robotics and technology fun.

Quoting from one of the parents, Kerstin Katko (Avery's mother), "I can't rave enough about Storming Robots. My son has been going there for the past six years and has learned so much on so many levels. Elizabeth, the director, motivates her students to work at a very high level but more important, in my opinion, are the ethical standards she upholds. Students are expected to take responsibility for their own work. They learn how to problem solve and become THINKERS and inventors. They learn to work hard and love doing it."

To learn about programs from Storming Robots, you may visit www.stormingrobots.com, or teams.stormingrobots.com about past competitions. NASA has also posted a press release: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/jan/HQ_12-029_SPHERES_Challenge_Winner.html.

Avery Katko was featured on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/45994302#46141440

To learn about the Zero Robotics program, visit www.zerorobotics.mit.edu.

Storming Robots provides year-round robotics engineering and technology education for talented youth. We offer engineering challenges that are not commonly present at grade-school levels. Our high school programs often deliver college level challenges. Through the engineering process, students learn the basic mechanical skills to build robots from scratch. They then program their robots with true programming language. Explore the world of automation!

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