SEARSPORT, Maine — Everybody on the Viking Landers robotics team lent a hand this week at a fundraising pasta dinner — especially Glitchen the robot.
Glitchen, complete with flashing orange lights, rolled and lurched around the Searsport District High School cafetorium, a dessert tray held proudly aloft. The 113-pound robot — built in just six weeks last winter by the high school’s robotics team — was tasked with making sure all attendees received a sweet treat before leaving.
“I think it’s amazing,” diner Kevin Kelley said. “And the most amazing thing is bringing my 92-year-old mom here. She’s never seen anything like it.”
Neither, it was clear, had lots of the other attendees, some of whom came just because they wanted to do a little something to help the Viking Landers purchase parts to build their 2016 robot. Last spring, the rookie team competed in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, robotics program. The nationwide program has the mission of inspiring young people to be leaders in science and technology.
On Thursday evening, Austin Bradley, a sophomore from Searsport, was helping to make sure Glitchen’s dessert mission went off without a hitch. He used an Xbox controller to move the robot around the cafeteria, and when Glitchen found someone in need of a piece of cake, its pneumatic arms would lower the dessert — served from a plastic recycling tote — to the right level.
Like another famous android, R2D2 from the “Star Wars” movies, Glitchen doesn’t yet know how to talk. But last spring he competed and did well in a game called “Recycle Rush,” in which robots worked together to stack recycling totes and pick up litter.
Bradley also helped design and build the robot, which can be programmed to be fully autonomous. The teen said he is looking forward to building the school’s next robot.
“I just think it’s a lot of fun,” he said. “You get hands-on experience. We got to learn about pneumatics. And you get to drive with an Xbox controller.”
Sharon Catus, a parent of a Viking Lander who helped to get the program started last year, said that while the four trophies that the team brought home last spring were important, so was the program’s volunteer component.
“At the end of the competition season, they brought the robot to Eastern Maine Medical Center and used it to deliver toys to kids,” she said.
Her daughter, Stockton Springs sophomore Mary Brenna Catus, said she is very excited for Jan. 9 — the date when students from all over Maine will gather to learn what the 2016 robot challenge will be.
“It is a super awesome experience,” she said. “There’s nerd stuff everywhere.”
Mary Anne McCrea, who came from Swanville to enjoy Thursday’s benefit pasta dinner, said she thinks Glitchen — and its humans — are pretty impressive.
“I think it’s wonderful,” she said of the robotics program.
Kelley did have one suggestion for the young engineers.
“Everybody says thank you [to the robot],” he said. “Now the robot has to learn [to say], ‘You’re welcome.’ It would light up eyes.”