Dropout returns for robots

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POCATELLO — Last year, Damon Jordan was a high school drop-out. These days, you’ll typically find the senior working well after dark in classroom No. 104 at Pocatello High School.

He says he quit school because he grew bored with the usual coursework. Robots drew him back into the fold.

In his final semester as a high school student, Damon may now well earn a full-ride scholarship to an engineering school.

When he dropped out of PHS last school year to take a job at his step-father’s sod farm, Damon didn’t care much about failing grades and unfished classes. He quickly obtained his general education diploma, planning to never return to PHS.

But he couldn’t bear the news when a school administrator informed him drop-outs weren’t welcome on the PHS campus — more specifically Room 104, where the school’s robotics team meets.

Helping to build a robot last winter that he and his teammates dubbed HEX was the highlight of high school for Damon, a technological whiz kid whose basement is filled with the mechanical toys he tore apart as a child and rebuilt with improved motors and electronics. HEX took fifth place out of more than 40 entries in the Regional Finals Robotics Competition in Portland, Ore.

In order to compete for a second year in the competition, Damon — a student with long hair and a plethora of nose, throat and ear piercings — had to register for a final year at PHS.

The high school’s administration wasn’t sold on Damon’s commitment, until robotics instructor Mark Edwards went to bat for him. Edwards assured the administration the boy had talent. He proposed a contract for Damon to sign, in which Damon would vow to attend classes — and try — even after the completion of the big robot contest.

Damon is making good on his promise. He's also busy with his robotics team members putting the finishing touches on this year's robot in anticipation of the regional finals March 1-3.

“It is really intense,” Damon said of the competition. “Everyone runs around doing everything at once. Last year, we had to take apart half of the robot and put a new wheel and gear in it and put it back together in two and a half minutes.”

For last year’s contest, the team had to design HEX to pick up inflated balls and shoot them through a large hoop mounted 8 feet off the ground in a gladiator-like arena. But HEX was badly damaged. The mechanical athlete now sits in the PHS basement awaiting repair — the robot had too much personality to scrap it for parts.

The kickoff for FIRST begins almost as frantically as it ends. Every year in early January, Edwards and his team of PHS students gather for a live NASA video feed shown to tech savvy teens around the world at precisely the same moment. During this feed, they learn what task there robot will have to perform.

This year Damon and his teammates joined teams from Eastern Idaho, Montana and Northern Utah at Hillcrest High School in Idaho Falls for the much-anticipated yearly announcement, which was made at precisely 8 a.m.

“We were all champing at the bit,” Edwards said. “Everyone ran to the front of the room to get their robot.”

FIRST organizers also gave each team a password to access on-line basic advice for assembling robots for the competitoin.

Edwards recalled the scene when each coach simultaneously handed off the newly received password to an eagerly awaiting team member, who sprinted to the nearest available computer to print out a thick instruction manuel.

This year, the team is building a robot that will pick up inflated rings and place them on poles. The poles, which are about two feet long and parallel to the ground, protrude from several stacked circular racks. Each rack contains eight poles. The teams get points for each ring their robot successfully places. The competition is called “Rack n' Roll.”

Showing their wit is not limited to technology, the PHS team creatively named their robot, “Elvis, the King of Rack 'n Roll.”

“We were talking about having blue suede bumpers, but they have to be canvas,” Damon said.

Each team member is assigned to make specific parts for the new robot. Damon is working on the arms and is responsible to ensure all batteries to be used in Portland are properly charged. Because he is quick on his feet, he was selected as one of the teams two tool runners for the competition.

When the robot suffers a broken part, his job will be to run from the arena to the tools stored more than 100 yards away and return with them as fast as possible.

Thursday, Damon and his teammates looked stressed as they hurried to put the finishing touches on Elvis, which has to be shipped to Portland Tuesday to meet the competition deadline.

Said Damon’s mother, Carol Hawkins: “When they talk about it, you can see they get an adrenaline rush.”

Edwards said the annual project, organized with help from AMI engineers and Idaho State University students, is a good exercise in team work and strategy. Because of the stress associated with the deadline, he said there is also frustration.

“They have to learn to be nice to each other,” Edwards said.

Damon’s step-father, Chris Hawkins, believes the competition fits perfectly with Damon’s skills and interests. As a child, Hawkins remembers how Damon would spend long hours “improving” his toys. To find needed parts, Hawkins said Damon would sometimes climb into public trash bins.

“It's a challenge for him,” Hawkins said. “He's been taking things apart for ever n upgrading his electronic toys. He's always had that in him. It's just Damon.”

On a recent afternoon, while the students worked on Elivs two hours after the final school bell had rung, Damon’s mother and step-father learned something new about their son — he’s in line for a possible scholarship.

Edwards informed them that the regional director of FIRST had inquired about Damon’s plans for the future.

As Edwards spoke, they appeared to be stunned. They sat for a moment, speechless. Then Carol thanked Edwards for convincing the school administrators to give their son a second chance.

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