It’s easy to see that the story is in the numbers.

Robotics Team channels Jobs, prepares to take a byte out of the competition

When Steve Jobs died last fall, magazines like Newsweek, Time and Rolling Stone were digging deep into his past to chronicle the birth of Apple. His story became one that embodied the American Dream and revolutionized the established corporate nature of Silicon Valley. But it wasn’t easy. The formula for Jobs’ successes boil down to him and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak running on pure inspiration with little money and even less resources, using a basement as their headquarters.
It seems Jobs’ passion for innovation prevails through Morgan County High School’s Robotics Team.
These kids crank out code and speak in a lexicon full of “bytes, crawlers, dribbleware, sockets, zips and kernels.”  While the rest of the world discusses social media and e-commerce, these students are theorizing capabilities of quantum computing, which is the study of storing electronic memory on atoms, according to student Ashurst Walker.
They work diligently in a deserted classroom down a side hall of the high school that is now cluttered with metallic gadgets and widgets of all sizes. Several students type tirelessly on two computers that rest in a corner behind a cart of mechanical parts. It’s not hard to picture the two Steves slaving away at their high-tech magnum opus.
 They’ve even mirrored the same principles of making more with less, as Jobs once did.
“If we had suddenly $10,000 more to spend on it this year, I don’t know if we’d be able to make a significantly better robot than we would with the money we do,” said Mitcham Tuell, who’s working on the software for the robot.  “Some teams have professional engineers working on it, and they spend a ton of money buying nice parts; it’s not really in the spirit of the competition.”

written and photographed by angelina bellebuono

story by kathryn schiliro
photo illustrations by angelina bellebuono

Printed in the December 1, 2011 edition.

Printed in the December 1, 2011 edition.