It looked unfinished, with the nuts and bolts spread out on a nearby table and the wires curling out and around in apparent disarray.
But for a group of students at Henderson Community College, their assignment wasn't about appearances.
After all, it's one thing to build a robot that just looks like it will work. It's quite another to create one that actually will.
"I'm really proud of our students," said Randy Owens, who teaches and coordinates the only college industrial maintenance technology program of its kind in Kentucky.
"The more efficient the economy becomes, the more these people are needed," he added. "Sure, robots will replace people. But you'll need the people to fix the robots."
In three weeks, 10 men did just that, completing what they described as a programmable logic controller project.
It sounds complicated, and to a certain extent, it is. The goal was to find a way to help hearing-impaired children play a musical keyboard.
To do that, white, red, blue and green light bulbs were lit up at the sound of each note of the song "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
For fun, and as a final touch, the students attached Two Bit, a stuffed animal rabbit, to the air cylinders so that it appeared his paws were hitting notes on the piano that played the song.
The project had to include key elements for the college students to make the grade. These included a timer, a counter, a sequence routine, a sub-routine, math and data transfer.
As Owens explained, the final project was a test of everything the students have learned in the industrial maintenance technology program.
And as one student said, the roles the students chose for the project seemed to come relatively easily.
Jared Brooks of Dixon was the project engineer, meaning he oversaw the project from the beginning to the end to make sure all the materials and workers were on the job.
Meanwhile, Demetrius Chester and Brandon Bush designed the computer program that told the robot to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the piano.
Marvin McAtee, Jerry Morrow, Robert Robards, Chase Jewell, Jacob Busby and Josh Smith assisted in the wiring, air pressure and other portions of the construction. Carl Boksa was the purchaser who gathered the materials used for the project.
"It's definitely beneficial," Brooks said of the program. "Even to someone who has been out in (the industry), you can still learn (new things)."
That's also true for those who are recent high school graduates. Bush graduated from Henderson County High School last year, but even then he was often at the college, putting in what he said were about two hours per school day for a dual credit class with Owens.
"(This program) has taught me how to understand the flow of electricity and how things work in general," the 19-year-old said.
Bush will be taking what he learned in the course along with him to Murray State University, where he intends to focus on telecommunications systems management.
Others find jobs in or are assisted in fine-tuning their skills in industrial maintenance.
Brooks, for instance, said he worked at Gibbs for about 12 to 13 years and is now in maintenance at Alcan.
But he wants to complete his bachelor's degree at the University of Southern Indiana or Murray State University.
That way he will not only have a variety of skills to prepare him for the quickly changing job market; he will also have his college degree.
By integrating fluid power, motor control and robotics, blueprint reading, computer aided drawing, AC/DC electricity, maintenance of industrial equipment and digital electronics, the students work as a team to accomplish something that is greater than the sum of its parts, Owens said.
"I don't recruit these guys," he said. "They come to me because they want to learn. They have fun, and our relationship is one of mutual respect. And also I expect hard work, and I expect excellence."
Owens added that he really enjoys what he does and the fact that the community college and the area support the industrial maintenance technology program.
"It's a great thing and it's part of what we are as an American workforce," he said. "We will get through this difficult time with hard work and education, and some faith. This is part of what we are doing. We are giving hope to other people, and letting people know it can be done."
