Meadville, PA - May 2007

The clash of metal, sparks fly as screams of encouragement arise from the crowd… a classic battle takes place. Who wouldn’t be intrigued? Mike Kilburn, a junior at Meadville Area Senior High School, had been an avid viewer of the Battle Bots television series for years. This series featured homemade, remote controlled robots facing off in an enclosed arena. It was in December of 2006 that Kilburn had the chance to participate in building a Battle Bot of his own when the local chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association brought an educational spin-off program, BatttleBots IQ (BBIQ), to Meadville Area Senior High School.

Kilburn’s team, CCAVTS PM, was comprised of students from Crawford County Area Vocational Technical School’s welding, precision machining, electronics and computer applications classes who worked together to try and come up with a concept and design for the bot. With so many areas of expertise, ideas were plentiful, but agreement could not be reached.

“The field of ideas coming from other team members began to get so large that I realized that actually building a robot would not be the challenge, but more working with a team that also is so eager to build a battle bot. Team management then became our top priority,” said Kilburn.

Kilburn continued, “We began having meetings discussing the single aspect of how to break the team down in to smaller teams to organize ideas into groups such as the body, or the weapon system. With more success in this method our robot finally began to take shape. The individual teams began talking on smaller ideas opposed to one large idea that seemed never ending.”

CCAVTS PM was just one of 15 teams, 120 total students and 10 different schools that competed in the Tool City BattleBots IQ competition held Saturday, May 5th at Meadville Area Senior High School in front of a crowd of over 1,000 spectators. The student teams manufactured 15 pound robots that battled in a double-elimination style tournament in an enclosed arena. The student teams were guided by 20 educators.

CCAVTS PM was ultimately defeated and the winner, Maplewood High School’s robot, Stingray 5000 was victorious featuring a three-wheel spinning robot with a barbed weapon on the back and metal spikes on the front to inflict damage upon the opponent.

Placing second in the competition was “Warmeggedon,” a robot built by Crawford County Area Vocational-Technical School’s CCAVTS AM team.

The Northwestern Pennsylvania chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association’s main goal in sponsoring the Tool City BBIQ competition was to stimulate interest in the sciences and manufacturing careers. While students have fun building the robots, they are also learning math, science, engineering and manufacturing as they apply classroom theory to bot-building.

Scott Hanaway, president of the local NTMA chapter and President of Tech Tool & Molded Plastics, sees events such as BattleBots as vital activities — creating interest not just in manufacturing, but in running a business.

“It’s creating an understanding of teamwork, an understanding of communication skills and problem-solving,” said Hanaway. “The jobs that are in demand are high-tech and need people who know how to communicate and how to problem-solve. It benefits the kids and it benefits the work force ultimately.”

Kilburn couldn’t agree more, “As the project came to an end I began to reflect on how valuable the Battle BotsIQ program really was. I personally felt that this program was not built around the single aspect of seeing who could build the best robot but more on the aspect of how to manage with a team. The quality of being able to function with a team is something that will affect the lives of students greatly in their field of work.”