With a little help from the Whiting School of Engineering, 20 high school students from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute spent part of their summer vacation learning how to build high-tech robots. At the close of the four-week program, the students brought their creations to the Homewood campus for a demonstration and competition.

Supervised by Poly physics and electricity teacher Dan Conrad and two recent Hopkins engineering graduates, the students built 11 small robotic vehicles equipped with battery packs, sensors, programmable microchips and motors. The vehicles, which were not radio-controlled, had to use infrared sensors to find their way around obstacles and reach targets within a walled platform set up inside Shaffer Hall.

The JHU/Poly Robotics Summer Program, launched seven years ago, allows Poly students entering 10th through 12th grades to attend tuition-free. Partial funding has been provided by Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman.