At Torque Transmission, we are always excited to see how our products are being used in real-world applications. Recently we were contacted by client John Richner from Boulder City, Nevada who serves as a mentor to the Boulder City High School FIRST Robotics Team. FIRST (which is an acronym meaning “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”) according to their website is a "global robotics community preparing young people for the future and the world's leading youth-serving nonprofit advancing STEM education."
Each year FIRST holds robotics competitions across the country which give high school students and their adult mentors the opportunity to work together to attempt to solve a problem. These competitions combine the excitement of sports with the challenges of science and technology. FIRST considers their competitions the ultimate sport for the mind!
Each competition has strict rules, limiting time and resources available to each team. These teams are challenged to fundraise, sharpen their teamwork skills, and most importantly build and program industrial-sized robots. These robots must perform certain tasks, and compete in robot games against similar competitors. Students get a real-world look what working in the engineering field truly is like.
During last year's competition, the Boulder City High School "High Scalers" team built the robot in the image posted along with this story. With Mr. Richner's guidance they purchased a few of our SW-1 worm gear drives for use in their robots. The Torque Transmission gearbox was used to rotate the upper assembly on the robot pictured. According to our customer it worked very well during the competition, and they were interested in purchasing another for their new creation this year.
The SW-1 gearbox will in fact be in use again in the Boulder City High School “High Scalers” team robot, which will be their third robot in 12 seasons to use our product. The SW-1 was used in 2011 when the team went to the world championships in St. Louis(!), last year in 2019, and now once again in the 2020 edition for the climbing mechanism. Below are some photos that show the gearboxes used in past robots.
Good Luck to the Boulder City High School robotics team. You have definitely earned yourselves some new fans here at Torque Transmission in Fairport Harbor, Ohio.
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