Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Jan 09/06) - Robots invaded the pool at the Frobisher Inn in Iqaluit recently. Students from Inuksuk high school built the submersibles with the hope of travelling to Newfoundland to defeat other robots in the regional robotic championships.

These are not Star Wars robots but simple machines built to accomplish simple tasks. They are mostly made out of plastic tubing and good intentions.

The 13 students - who were working on their own time without course credit - designed, built and coaxed their robots throughout the tasks.

Two instructors from the Marine Institute in St. John's, Nfld., came to Iqaluit for the big test.

Clar Button and Dwight House arrived two days in advance of the pool time, to help the young aquanauts prepare their machines.

After the tests were complete, the kids analyzed the performance of their vehicles. Each submarine had a strong point that the students are going to use to construct their mega-robot.

One submersible wasn't buoyant enough, one was too small and one had shrouds around the motors which made it very manoeuvrable.

The robots had to move a metal bar 90 degrees and pick up a velcro tab. Each robot had a video camera mounted on it, to let the pilot know where to turn and where to lift.

The students need to raise $3,000 for each team member to get them to Newfoundland, and if they win there, they travel to Texas to fight it out for the international underwater robot championship.

They hope to sell advertising space on their robot to help raise the money.

This experience has encouraged some of the students to follow science for a career.

A show of hands indicated that one third of the students will be taking science after graduation.

Coincidentally, that is the same amount of team members that confirmed they are fans of the television show Battlebots, where robots fight each other to the death.