Unlike in the legend of the Golem, the students at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Rafael didn’t lose control of their creation. Rather, their monster simply had too much competition.
Participating in U.S. FIRST’s Western Regional Robotics Competition on the Peninsula last weekend, Brandeis and its entry — nicknamed Golem — fared well, emerging from the elimination round in third place and winning an award.
However, during the event, held at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Golem lost its first match in the finals, losing the possibility of going to Florida for the national competition.
Twenty-seven schools participated in the local competition, sponsored by NASA. Although the event was geared toward high school students, Brandeis middle school was granted special permission to participate and was in fact the only middle-school entry in the national competition.
The Brandeis students won the “Best Play of the Day” award on the first day.
Schools scored points by maneuvering their robots to lift colored, circular pillows filled with packing peas eight feet into the air, and to climb onto a 5-inch-high platform.
Through a live Internet video feed, Brandeis students were able to have a conversation about the robot with students at Hativat Zeev, Brandeis’ sister school in Israel. Brandeis students were also interviewed for a TV broadcast that will be shown in Israel.
A video and an infomercial of the experience is in the works.