A tractor-shaped robot about the size of a tricycle zoomed around the floor of the Baltimore Convention Center, racing to capture octagon-shaped "goals" and push them toward an end zone.
"Our plan is to get the two goals and get to the touchdown," explained Dante Bryant, a 16-year-old senior at Parkville High School.
Dante and about 30 of his fellow students built the 129.95-pound robot, Firestone 4, in an after-school club. Yesterday, their robot competed with three similar ones in a corner of the Baltimore Convention Center dubbed the "Robotics Zone."
It was one of more than 300 exhibits on display at the eighth annual Maryland Technology Showcase. The showcase, which continues today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., is free and open to the public. Its goal is to bring together state agencies, companies and groups to present their technologies.
About 10,000 visitors are expected over the two days.
David Klein, a technology teacher at Parkville High and adviser for the robot project, said building a robot has, in the past, prompted some students to study engineering in college.
"It really helps a lot of the students decide what they want to do," he said.
Parkville High School's robot is strong enough to push 800 pounds and has a T-shaped bar in front that can be maneuvered to slip between two bars on the octagonal goal, lock on and pull it in any direction. On the back of the robot is a one-way door, similar to the flippers on a pinball machine, that lets the bar on a goal in and then keeps it in place.
"We bring in engineers to help [the students] design it, but they don't tell the students what to do," Klein said. "They're on a level playing field."
The students weren't the only group with technology on display at the showcase, which is put together by E.J. Krause and Associates, a Bethesda company that organizes international technology exhibitions.
Southern Business Communications, an Atlanta company, displayed the electronic audio and video equipment that it sells for conference rooms. Ark Systems Inc. of Columbia showed its security technologies, such as a face recognition system that zeros in on someone's head with a camera and then recognizes if that person should, for instance, be allowed into a secure area.
The Aberdeen Proving Ground's business development office exhibited some of its patent-pending technology, including the Biskit. About the diameter of a petri dish, the Biskit is a safe way to collect biological chemicals because it allows the user to soak the chemicals directly into the dish and then drain them from there into a jar without ever touching the chemicals.
A Northern Virginia company, Alion Science and Technology, displayed an elongated, transparent bubble just large enough to fit a human body inside. The pod, which the company is redesigning for the military, protects military personnel who have been the victims of a biological attack and has gloves built into its shell so someone on the outside can reach in and touch the victim.
"It allows the patient to be put in the pod ... and someone can work on them, treat them in the pod," said Nina Bean, an assistant vice president at Alion.