\nCommercial Appeal<\/a>
\nPosted March 26, 2012 at midnight <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.dan-kohn.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/img_8409-225x300.jpg\" "\\"img_8409\\"")
<\/a>Picture taken by Daniel Kohn<\/p><\/div>\n
Davis Fortenberry, 10, rolled out his robot in a college-level competition in Orlando earlier this month and mopped up, save for the jaws on the floor.<\/p>\n
With bangs, barely a care about girls and two feet shorter than the competition, this one-kid team outmaneuvered most college teams at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Southeastern competition.<\/p>\n
“Actually it was kind of exciting; I wasn’t nervous at all,” said Davis, a fifth-grader from Piperton.<\/p>\n
“When I explained to them how old I was, what grade I was in and that I did have a robot, I think they were afraid of me,” he said.<\/p>\n
Out of 54 teams, only Florida A&M-Florida State University College of Engineering, University of Alabama and Mississippi State scored higher.<\/p>\n
“This is a very, very intelligent boy,” said Regina Hannemann, researcher at the University of Kentucky and chairwoman of IEEE District 3 student activities committee.<\/p>\n
“A 10-year-old doing this level of programming is astonishing,” she said.<\/p>\n
Dan Kohn, assistant professor at the University of Memphis, was struck by Davis’ calm.<\/p>\n
“He fit right in, which was just absolutely incredible. I heard him strike up a conversation with a university student. It wasn’t a conversation of a 10-year-old talking to a university student. It was a conversation of equals.”<\/p>\n
Earlier, competitors had complained about Davis’ appearance in the contest, sure the boy was showing off someone else’s work.<\/p>\n
But when Hannemann announced Davis’ first-place win in the open competition, the room erupted in a standing ovation, the only one all weekend.<\/p>\n
“It was as much relief as anything,” Kohn said. “The problem all engineers see is there is such a lag in the United States for science, technology, engineering and math.<\/p>\n
“When you see a young man achieving so much at 10 years old, OK, there is hope for us,” he said.<\/p>\n
Davis, who has tinkered with robots since he was 5, built his “davibot” in a week, starting with an m3pi (“a robot in itself, really”) as the base.<\/p>\n
He added an Arduino (Italian microcomputer that tells the base unit whether to go left, right, straight ahead), then designed components for measuring contest specifics: voltage, capacitance, temperature and waveform.<\/p>\n
Contest rules also say robots must be completely autonomous, which means no remote controls or human interaction after competition starts.<\/p>\n
“I’m just learning what my dad and brother taught me, and I’m applying it to my work,” Davis said. “So far, it’s been working out.”<\/p>\n
He attends Tennessee Virtual Academy, an online school approved by the Tennessee legislature last year.<\/p>\n
It allows parents to tailor the home-based curriculum, which turned out to be the critical loophole allowing him to qualify to compete.<\/p>\n
“I read over rules thoroughly,” said Davis’ father, Robert Fortenberry, senior vice president of technical services at Cook Systems.<\/p>\n
“I could not find anywhere that there was any age limit at all. The requirement was that they have to be an IEEE member.”<\/p>\n
Student IEEE membership requires a focus on engineering and computer programming. “They assume that is going to be at the university level,” Fortenberry said.<\/p>\n
Their older son, Madison — 19 and a senior at the University of West Florida — also competed as a high school student because he was enrolled in college courses.<\/p>\n
Madison was also to compete last weekend. When he got sick the day of the competition, Davis ran his brother’s robot team, plus his own.<\/p>\n
“They’re just kids,” Fortenberry said. “We’ve tried to teach them to use their time wisely and exchange it for something valuable. There is nothing more intrinsically valuable than knowledge.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fifth-grader bests college students at robotics competition 10-year-old’s first-place win earns standing ovation By Jane Roberts Commercial Appeal Posted March 26, 2012 at midnight Davis Fortenberry, 10, rolled out his robot in a college-level competition in Orlando earlier this month … Continue reading