Students from the Career Magnet School in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, created a robotic forklift that performed well against the competition during the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Robotics Competition.

A team of 25 high school students in Pennsylvania not only created a robotic forklift, they designed it to work completely by itself, without the need for any humans at the controls.

The group from the Career Magnet School in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania spent six weeks working on the robot that was one of the top competitors in the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Robotics Competition last month.

The 120 lb. (54 kg) truck is designed by the students to lift totes and recycling bins at their school. The students did everything from designing the forklift and building the parts using a 3D printer to constructing it and then writing the computer code necessary to manoeuvre it.

"We had different teams working on different things," says 11th-grader Matthew Seaman. "Eventually, it came all together into one project."

Chambersburg Area School District spokesperson Tamera Stouffer says the team from the school that focuses on science and engineering did an excellent job in the first round of the robotics competition. However, as occasionally happens, "they had trouble with a cable" and did not do as well in the final rounds.

Nevertheless, the project does much more than create a robotic forklift, states their technical education teacher, Raymond Setaro.

"Really, they did a lot more than just build a robot," Setaro says. "There are so many things the students had to consider. They involved business administration, marketing, design and engineering."