Oakdale Students Put Robotic Twist On March Madness
OAKDALE (KDKA) -- Fourth and fifth graders at Donaldson Elementary in Oakdale squared off in the battle of the sumo-bots.
The robotic twist on March Madness culminated a four-week outreach program with Pittsburgh Technical Institute.
"We gave them a magnetic kit and we worked through and we made electromagnets and we made diode circuits," PTI's Dave Becker said. "We made motors. And we finished off today with the sumo-bot competition."
Though PTI students built the robots, kids who took them over know exactly how they work.
"I learned that with a coil of wire and a magnet you can create energy and electricity," Casey Bachowski said.
Each mini-bot contains a microcontroller, similar to every electrical device in every home.
Each robot comes with a pair of sensors. One sensor keeps the robot on the mat. The other seeks out the opponent to push it off the mat.
After the Sweet 16 and Final Four, a champion was crowned electromagnetically.
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