Showing off: Students take a robot to Missouri for competition


The Alamance-Guilford 5309 Plan B Robotic team members are from left, Schae Stewart, Owen Gold, Brian Gold and John Ange Kernodle. Atlas, by the way, is the one on the front row.

Sam Roberts / Times-News
Published: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 18:08 PM.

What can a robot made by students actually do?

Well, a group of high school students from Alamance and Guilford counties went to Missouri to show them exactly that.

Schae Stewart, John Ange Kernodle, and Owen Gold, high school freshmen, and Brian Gold, a junior, spent five months building a robot they nicknamed “Atlas,” specifically to compete in first a state robotic tournament in February, and ultimately an international robotics tournament held in St. Louis last month. The home-schooled students took on 127 other robotics teams.

The group comprises “Plan B,” Team No. 5309, in one of multiple individual leagues under the competitive robotics association, The organization is known as FIRST, or “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.” Plan B is a  FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team, which is for students in grades 7-12.

The 2012-13 FTC World Championship Event was held April 24-27 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, and the Whitsett-based team was one of only two from North Carolina. It qualified at the 2012 N.C. FIRST FTC Championship Tournament in February.

In September, all the FTC teams received the specifications for the robot they were to build, which had to complete a specific task.

“There’s a task that we have to perform each year that changes,” said Kernodle, of Burlington.

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