Fifteen local high school students have six weeks to build a robot that can stack totes, place recycling bins on top, and recycle litter.

The students were tasked with the challenged Saturday morning at the Southern Oregon First Robot Competition (FRC) kick off event at the Klamath Community College. About 75 students from Klamath Falls, Bend, Ashland, and North Valley schools gathered at Klamath Community College to watch an online stream from NASA that revealed this year’s challenge: Recycle Rush.

During the final Recycle Rush competition, student-built robots will compete in teams of three during 2.5-minute matches on a 27-by-54-foot playing field. The goal is to score points by stacking colored bins and boxes and putting pool noodles, which represent litter, into the tubs.

Klamath Basin robotics team, KB Bots (officially titled Team 4057) member Sally Clark, 14, said this year’s challenge might be easier than past challenges because the robot only has to perform a few tasks.

Last year’s robot

Last year, the KB Bots built an “aerial assist,” robot, named Omaha, that could throw and catch a 2-foot ball before sinking it into a goal.

EagleRidge community involvement coordinator Valeria Menke said the team won the competition’s highest honor, a Chairman’s Award, for Omaha and its accompanying business plan.

“The kids are very inventive, very good at thinking outside the box,” Menke said.

KB Bots lead mentor Melissa Dreyer explained that the kick off signaled the start of a six-week work session, in which the teams have to build a robot, market it, create media like a DVD and a presentation, and perform outreach with other student groups.

More than a robot

“It’s not just about the robot. It’s about a project management,” Dreyer said. “They are learning how to run a business.”

Team member Thomas Cooper, 18, noted that each year students build on problem solving skills and teamwork values they’ve used in previous years. He said the six-week deadline is one of the hardest aspects of the challenge.

“Time management is hard,” Cooper said.

Team coach Alecia Rush, who teaches at Triad School, said the robotics team is open community-wide, to any students who are 13 or more years old, but who have not graduated 12th grade. She said the group is also seeking sponsors to help purchase equipment and to help fund travel to competitions.

“It’s an opportunity to sponsor the next generation of engineers,” Rush said.

This is the second year the event was hosted in Klamath Falls.

Other teams from across the state watched the kick off in Corvallis and at the University of Portland.

ljarrell@heraldandnews.com; @LMJatHandN