November 14, 2024
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Technology students’ robot returns from Kyrgyzstan success

BANGOR – The remote-controlled robot that United Technologies Center students built and sent to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in February to see whether it could be operated from a location on the other side of the planet is back at the technical school on Hogan Road.

“It made it back all in one piece,” Ron Canarr, UTC electronics and robotics teacher, said last week. “Rick [Canarr] stuffed all of it into one package.”

Rick Canarr, the teacher’s brother, was stationed at a U.S. Air Force base in Kyrgyzstan and volunteered to host the robot, called the UTC Explorer. The robot, about a foot tall, resembles a laptop computer on wheels and is equipped with a webcam.

“Rick came back a week before the robot,” the teacher said. “It cost him all of $15 to send it back. They kept the battery.”

Bishkek is the capital of the Central Asian nation of 5.2 million people. The idea behind the experiment was to see whether the students could command their hand-built remote-controlled robotic device from Bangor.

The high school students got the UT Explorer working on Jan. 31 for 29 minutes 30 seconds before class ended. On that day, they were able to move the robot and see images in Bishkek from the device’s mounted webcam.


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