Robots

Lean financial times are prompting belt-tightening far and wide -- and now that extends to Mars and the rest of the solar system.

President Barack Obama's proposed budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for fiscal year 2013 would eliminate $300 million from the agency's planetary sciences division, a 20 percent cut from the $1.5 billion it received for 2012. Though the budget plan, released last week, would preserve funding for high-profile projects like the James Webb Space Telescope and manned space missions, scientists were alarmed by the hit to relatively inexpensive programs that explore the solar system with high-tech robots.

CLEARFIELD -- For eighth-grader Carson Crook, building Lego creations is a means to an end.

"I want to be an aeronautical or computer engineer," he said. "(The FIRST Lego League) is experience with computers and building stuff."

Crook, a member of the FIRST Lego League (FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) at North Davis Junior High School, participated in a clash of robot skills against teams from Wasatch and Hill Field elementary schools.

SALT LAKE CITY — Nighttime deer poachers beware — that shadowy creature on the side of the road may just be remote-controlled.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Tucked into the cluster of business parks surrounding Stanford University, a team of young engineers is assembling a fleet of robots that can fold laundry, bake cookies, flip pancakes and deliver cold beer.

For that matter, the PR2s, as they're known, can do just about any task you'd expect of the average butler, so long as somebody cares to write up the software. And that willingness to share in development is part of the mission of Willow Garage, a 5-year-old Menlo Park research lab.

GOLETA, Calif. -- It was lunch hour and hundreds of Dos Pueblos High School students surged onto the bleachers at the school's outdoor Greek Theater. The crowd was cheering, the music was thumping and a student-built robot named Penguinbot IV was wheeling and pivoting, sucking up dozens of lightweight balls and shooting them at the young athletes who had ventured onstage.

From a console to one side, teenagers in black, NASA-style jumpsuits guided the 150-pound machine as it weaved and dodged. When the robot and star basketball player Jay Larinan began pelting each other, a girl in the stands screamed, "I believe in you, Jay!" The crowd went wild.

It was the kind of free-spirited scene that gladdens the heart of Amir Abo-Shaeer, the 39-year-old physics teacher who each year leads the school's robotics team into a rigorous national competition that requires months of preparation and a season's worth of intense face-offs.

SYRACUSE -- In a world of spinning and speeding robots stacking rings on a goal post while trying to keep others from scoring, it is as if Syracuse High School's robot is actually connected to Tanner Nielson's hand.

At least that is how Justin Frost, the high school's adviser to the VEX robotics club, describes the scene.

"He places his rings, throws the other team's (rings) under the ladder, then does loops and spins and defends where he's supposed to be," Frost said. "He messes around and goofs around and he's so good at it. It's amazing to watch it."