The newest officer on Rockledge's police force weighs in at 100 pounds and can handle any terrain and launch grenades.
Meet PDbot, a robot created by Brevard County high school students.
More than a year ago, Rockledge police were brainstorming about how to improve job safety. Someone mentioned the local robotics team. Police approached the team instructor at a football game, and the idea of PDbot was born.
"It's now in the realm of possibility for a high school team with a mentor to build a robot that's as high a quality that's available in industry," said NASA engineer Jason Schuler, 26, a former robotics team member in St. Petersburg and an adviser to PDbot. "I tend to go back to a lot of the hardware these teams are using. They're coming up to our professional level."
PDbot is the first robot created for commercial use in the history of the team, which started in Brevard in 1999 to energize students about STEM education, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math.
While some students do robotics to pad college resumes or learn teamwork, the program appears to be directing some to pursue math and science fields.
A recent survey of former team members showed an "enormous amount" went into mechanical engineering, said Marian Passmore, a math teacher at Rockledge High School who founded the team that has students from high schools across Brevard.
These days, many students are finding they can merge fields with robotics. For example, one student aspiring to be a doctor realized she could study prosthetic engineering, Passmore said.
As robots go, PDbot is not highly complex. Schuler and the teens who created PDbot -- Charlie Stankie, 16; Kaitlin Lostroscio, 17; Elle Doctor, 18; and Jacob Ville, 15 -- wanted to keep its design and parts simple.
PDbot is compact and stands a little more than 2 feet tall. It is strong enough to drag a person. Among its attachments are a speaker and microphone allowing for two-way audio and a camera that can take pictures in the dark. On its back, the robot has a police throw phone for use during crisis negotiations. It can operate in low-light environments, has a powerful floodlight and can withstand inclement weather.
Two pneumatic canister launchers can fire grenades, including tear gas and flash bangs, which are loud devices police deploy that cause disorientation.
PDbot can be operated remotely up to 500 feet. Police can use the robot not just in crisis situations but for search warrants, traffic stops, large-scale fights and suspicious packages.
The robot was under development long before three officers in St. Petersburg died on the job within weeks. Two officers died while serving a warrant on a suspect in January, and a third officer died one month later while investigating a report of a prowler.
The officer deaths drive home the need for PDbot, Rockledge Sgt. Gordon Hewatt said. "If we can use this to minimize the danger, both to the officer and suspect, it's worth it," he said.
A robot like PDbot, which is valued at $6,000, can cost upward of $100,000. Schuler, the team adviser who works on NASA's lunar rover Chariot, said PDbot is an example of using robotics teams' skills to reduce costs.
These days, robots are widespread across industry and service uses such robot nurses. But many think there needs to be a national agenda embracing robotics beyond STEM.
At a recent conference of industries using robots, many CEOs and vendors complained about the difficulty in finding engineers to apply robots to new fields and areas, said Frank Tobe, publisher of online site "The Robot Report."
"Our kids just don't have the interest to understand how things work," Tobe wrote in an e-mail. "They just want to use them and play with them."
Charlie Stankie, one of the teens who built PDbot, is not that kind of kid.
Ever since he can remember, Stankie said, he's wanted to build things. In sixth grade, Stankie learned about the robotics team called Pink that a group of girls named in 1999. Stankie knew then he would join.
It's been amazing to see how fast robot technology has evolved, he said.
"It makes me wonder what it will be like in 10 years when I'm actually entering the field," said Stankie, who wants to study mechanical engineering and aerospace at college.
To fund their competitions, the Pink team hopes to patent and mass-produce PDbot in kits that other robotics teams can buy, build and then sell to police departments.
But before they do that, they will build one more for free, for the St. Petersburg Police Department.
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Information from: Florida Today, http://www.floridatoday.com
