MARTINSVILLE – The robot may not look like much right now, but in a couple of months it will be fully capable of assisting Martinsville police officers responding to calls.
"We're working on trying to make it as light as possible while being able to maneuver around and do whatever it needs to do," said sophomore Noah Snell.
Currently, the robot weighs about 60 pounds and is designed to fit in a police car and be easily carried around.
The goal is to eventually equip it with a camera, speakers, a microphone and a robotic arm to pick things up.
"It's a great feeling knowing that something we did could change someone's life or save it even," Snell said.
The idea for the robot came earlier this semester when school resource officer JC White was investigating an unattended backpack.
"(I) came across this book bag and I'm kind of looking at it. A student (said) 'How do you know what's in there?' and (I said), 'Well, I don't. But, if I had a robot that'd be kind of cool,'" White recalled.
He started discussing the idea with the school's robotics team.
Monday, the students had been working on the robot for about a month and were already about halfway done.
"Our competitive (robotics) season ended at the end of April, so this became an offseason project," said Martinsville High School career and technical education coordinator Todd Cassell.
"It was a fantastic offseason project and the kids just took off with it," Cassell continued.
Students said the learning experience has been fun.
"We're using some components that we haven't used before, but we're also using ones that we have used before. So, it's a little bit of knowing what you're doing and a little bit of learning along the way," said junior Daniel Peay.
The parts for the robot have been paid for by donations from the team's sponsors and the team hopes to get more donations to fund the remainder of the construction.
The robot is expected to be completed by the end of 2017, but even once the robot is turned over to the police department the students will continually update it as necessary.
For information about sponsoring the team, contact Cassell at tcassell@martinsville.k12.va.us.