Whiz Kid: David Schellenberg

Cleveland Heights Patch Whiz Kid of the Week David Schellenberg

• Just graduated from
• Participated in a robotics competition to design a killer robot
• Is also an Eagle Scout

David Schellenberg couldn’t believe his ears.

A competition where students built robots to battle each other needed another team to participate. The competition pits high schools against each other and one of the high schools dropped out, even though it was already five months into the competition.

With only two months left before the big robot tournament, the company sponsoring the competition asked Cleveland Heights High School officials if they knew of any students that would want to participate. After hearing the announcement in his engineering technology class, David couldn’t have volunteered fast enough.

The Alliance for Working Together is a competition designed to spark an interest in engineering and manufacturing among participating students. Teams build robots and are given the materials they need to do so. Each team is also provided a kit to get them started and free use of nearby manufacturing facilities that participate in the tournament to build the robot.

David, 17, said that with only two months to research and build, the team was at a disadvantage from the start.

“We were a little bit limited because we didn’t have all the time so we had to use what was available,” David said. “A lot of it was trial and error figuring out what we could do with what we had on hand and what we couldn’t do.”

The robot David built with his team, which included two other students, had to be less than 15 pounds and follow other specifications like containing a manual shutoff and be able to stop within 30 seconds. What they came up with was a dome that spun around on a chassis with little teeth on its edge to grind up an opponent.

They used what they learned from the engineering technology class as well as weeks of research to decide on the best build method. The team was allowed to be excused from classes for a week and made arrangements to complete the work they missed so they could build the robot.

One of their most glaring mistakes, they would later find out, was using aluminum as the metal to build the robot instead of something stronger like titanium. At the double-elimination tournament, held at Lakeland Community College, David’s robot was defeated in both its outings, sending the team home without a win.

David said it was still a good experience and helped confirm that he wants to become an engineer. He’ll attend The Ohio State University in the fall.

David is also an Eagle Scout and has been in the Boy Scouts since he was young.

Want to nominate an awesome kid or teen for our weekly Whiz Kid article? Send an email to Michelle.Simakis@patch.com.