Salem
robots head overseas to battle
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TIMOTHY J. GONZALEZ / Statesman
Journal
Max Chapin (left) and
Mark Joerger demonstrate their new robot, The Gap, at
Chapin’s South Salem workshop.
| Defending “Robotica” champion Mark Joerger has
built a new fighter.
DAN DE CARBONEL
Statesman Journal
January 20
It’s not exactly a command
performance in front of Queen Elizabeth II, but Salem’s Mark
Joerger and his robot Run Away have been invited back to
England for another round of “Robot Wars.”
Joerger has traveled the globe to compete
in battle-robot competitions. His first creation, Run Amok,
was a surprise winner last year on the show “Robotica,” on The
Learning Channel.
Last fall, Joerger took a retooled Run Amok,
renamed Run Away, to compete in “Robot Wars,” in
London.
This week, Joerger, teammate Max Chapin and Team
Creative Steel will compete in a new round of Robot Wars,
expected to air later this winter on The National
Network.
Joerger, his wife, Lissa, and son, Aaron, 10; and
Chapin’s family, Josh, 14, Jordan, 10, and his wife, Kristie,
leave today for London.
Last fall, Run Away proved no match for the
competition in “Robot Wars” and was tossed on its back and
knocked out of the running.
This time, Joerger, a Department of
Transportation researcher, is heading across the Atlantic with
twice as much firepower.
He’s made Run Away more powerful, and with
teammate Chapin, constructed a new robot, The Gap, that they
hope to stand the competition on its ear, or at least its
side.
“The Gap is wildly different from Run
Away,”Joerger said.
Unlike piercing and cutting weapons found on
other robots, The Gap’s main weapon is a pneumatic arm that
can lift up to 400 pounds and dump opposing robots on their
sides.
“We’d just as rather put them on their side as
cut them in half,” Joerger said.
Joerger and Chapin say they’ve put in long hours
to get The Gap ready. They would have liked to have had a few
more weeks tweaking and polishing its design.
“We ran out of time with what we wanted
to do,” Chapin said.
Chapin owns Creative Steel, a steel fabrication
shop in Salem. Joerger specializes in the electronics, and
Chapin handles the metal work.
Chapin is excited about the chance to pilot his
own robot. He and Joerger don’t know if Run Away will
eventually have to face The Gap.
Chapin will handle the controls of The Gap and is
as excited as his two sons about being on the show. But it’s
not life or death to him.
“I don’t expect to light the world on fire with
The Gap,” he said. “And I’m not going to cry if we don’t
win.”
Dan de
Carbonel can be reached at (503) 399-6714.
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