For six weeks, Erinn Sheridan worked almost around the clock. She machined the gear box, welded the metal supports and soldered electronic components into a whistling and whirring mechanical stacking device.
"It was the most fun ever," said Sheridan, an 18-year-old from Mount Airy who helped fashion the robot with a team of fellow students at Glenelg High School.
Sheridan's 5-foot-tall, 130-pound conglomeration of metal, motors and circuits was among 15 robots on display yesterday at RobotFest, an annual celebration.
Gary Mauler, an organizer, said the exhibition aims to reward and inspire future engineers in the same way that a state basketball championship tickles hoop-obsessed youths.
"The jocks get their sporting events, but the technology kids are ignored, so we wanted to give them some place to show their stuff," the electrical engineer said.
That place was among the displays on cryptology, radar and electronic countermeasures at the Historical Electronics Museum, the one with the anti-submarine torpedo beside the entrance.
Yesterday, the museum in Linthicum teemed with devices that could mill metallic parts, defuse an explosive or navigate a maze in search of a fire to douse.
"Programming was the hardest," said Thomas Cannaliato, an 11-year-old from Eldersburg who helped develop the computer code that guided robots that danced, pushed soda cans and wandered within a black-lined perimeter.
Nearby, his homeschooled classmates showed off the firefighting robot, a winner at the recent Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest in Hartford, Conn.
Their robot motored around a maze in search of a candlelight to extinguish. The device was a taped-up conglomeration of sensors, circuits and a fan, all given marching orders by a laptop computer.
"It's very fun. You're playing with electronics and fire," said Katelyn Gallagher, 16, from Eldersburg, recalling the painstaking assembly and testing of the robot.
Some of the robots on display were built by students for educational purposes, while others were purchased by adults for hobbies and business.
Chris Daniel, an enthusiast from Burtonsville, showed off a computer-controlled tabletop mill, which can make a cube within a cube within a cube, or a metal penguin.
"We just love cutting metal," said Daniel, one of a few members of the Chesapeake Area Metalworking Society displaying their robot.
Ted Meminger, a deputy state fire marshal, displayed a $150,000 robot that can X-ray suspicious packages, look for hostages and defuse an explosive.
Alex Voltz, 8, ran his fingers along the 600-pound robot, posing for its video camera and playing with the mechanical arm. "I've never seen a robot this big," said the boy from Clarksville, as his father pointed out the sensors, microphone and other parts.
One of the goals of the festival is to encourage youths to pursue careers in engineering and science, fields that always seem to lack for American students.
Sheridan, from Glenelg High, said the robot-building work helped her decide to study chemical engineering when she starts college in the fall.
Neil Simmons, who was showing robots built from Legos that can climb stairs, drop balls into baskets and open a gate, said the six months of work led him to a different career choice.
"Building demolitionist," the 14-year-old from Bel Air said.
