Flower Mound High School students go global

Meet FloMo.

He’s agile, well-trained and prefers to live at least 12 feet below the water’s surface. At almost six months old, FloMo’s parents — and best friends — are four high schoolers from Flower Mound High School.

FloMo was once just a twinkle in Luke Cragin’s eye as he designed the robot on a computer during a drafting class his freshman year in high school. After several months of building, a few mess-ups and a lot of teamwork, FloMo sprang from the page into the computer-operated, camera-laden, clawed creature that he is today.

He may not look like the typical robot — no buggy eyes and no eerie computer-generated voice — but he certainly acts like one. FloMo was engineered to perform tasks in icy waters when it’s too dangerous or expensive to send men into the depths of the ocean.

In landlocked Flower Mound, FloMo (named for the hip way to abbreviate his hometown) hasn’t seen the ocean as of yet. Instead, the four students test him out in the back corner of the natatorium.

The $8,000 robot was invented for a competition challenging students to create ROVs, or remotely operated vehicles. In May, FloMo’s creators, Luke Cragin, Collin Cragin, Rachel Glockenmeier and Sung Ho Park, received first place at a competition in Houston. On Saturday, the four will travel to St. John’s in Newfoundland, Canada, to compete against 22 other high school teams for the international title. The contests are sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center.

This contest marks the first time in LISD history that its students have competed in an international competition, said Adrien Moreno, an assistant principal at Flower Mound High School.

The four students have spent afternoons and late evenings tweaking their invention, which took more than five months to assemble. Even their teacher, Ralph Szydlik, has stuck around weeks after school ended in May.

“I usually make all my money in the summers,” said Szydlik, who also works as an engineer on special projects in his free time. This year, the underwater robotics team came first.

But FloMo actually didn’t start out as a school-based project. Luke and Collin Cragin initially began building the robot with their dad, Trent Cragin, as a family project long before it became a school-affiliated endeavor.

“We’ve always built model airplanes,” said Trent Cragin, an engineer himself. “It’s just another toy to build.”

FloMo can often be seen perched on the Cragin’s kitchen table or sitting around the house. And with as much time as the Cragins have invested FloMo’s success, he’s basically a member of the family.

Time isn’t the only investment, however. Trent Cragin paid for the entire $8,000 robot and won’t be reimbursed by the school district. Although the school paid for most of the team’s travel expenses, the most important part of their trip — their sub-human creation — wasn’t in the school’s budget.

“To be honest with you, the school really wasn’t a part of it until we had success,” Trent Cragin said. “When we won, everybody got interested. […] Maybe they will help fund it next time.”

At the international contest, the four students and their robot must complete three missions. The complicated tasks involve threading string, similar to thick fishing line, through a ring on an anchored buoy; collecting jellyfish and algae found under a sheet of ice; and screwing mechanical parts onto and off of an oil well head stationed underwater.

It’s all masterminded by the four students, who stand about 15 feet away, watching FloMo’s movements on a computer screen or participating manually. It’s as if they’re a team of puppeteers, acting swiftly and rhythmically as their robot obeys.

The rules are stringent: Teams only get one try. No talking to the “driver,” or the person directly operating the robot. Members must hoist their robot out of the water manually. (FloMo, for instance, weighs about 40 pounds.) And no drinking the possibly-toxic water in the ice tank.

“It’s pretty complicated,” Glockenmeier said.

The team made all their own props to simulate the actual contests. To imitate jellyfish floating in the natatorium pool, they used colorful cat toys. A thin sheet of ice, for now, is a transparent plastic floor mat used for rolling office chairs. The smooth black sides of the robot with handles to lift it out of the water? Cutting boards from Target.

Luke Cragin is the driver. He sits about 30 feet away, his back to the pool, in front of a television screen with his hands gripped on two joysticks. The picture on the screen is the reflection of one of the cameras on FloMo’s chest.

It’s an eyeless creature no more; Luke Cragin sees for the robot.

“It’s like a video game simulation,” Szydlik said. “It looks like the worst game of ping pong you’ve ever played.”

Luke Cragin and his teammates have spent months trading off driving FloMo so they can all experience the difficult task. In the end, Luke Cragin, the original designer of the robot, knows it best.

“We’re trying to win it, so we’re putting Luke at the helm,” Szydlik said.

After many late nights and long weekends, the team has no more time to prepare for the June 22 competition. FloMo has already been slightly disassembled, bubble wrapped and shipped to St. John’s, where the team will reclaim him when they arrive.

“We really hope it gets there in one piece,” Trent Cragin said.

In addition to garnering considerable attention from robotics teams across the country, as well as enticing teachers and administrators to fund a robotics team next year, the four students said they learned a thing or two along the way.

“I didn’t know anything about electrical engineering,” said Luke Cragin.

Now, they stealthily refer to electrical engineering as “double E.” Combined with mechanical, structural and computer engineering — not to mention physics, technology, design and art — building a robot takes a range of knowledge in science and math.

The team is confident that their robot can successfully complete all three missions.

When asked if he thought they’d win first place, Luke Cragin paused. He then said, “Yes, I think. It’s all about time. If we can do that, we can win.”

Contact staff writer Sarah Blaskovich at 972-628-4074 or at SBlaskovich@acnpapers.com.

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