Controlling your robots is now cheaper because of an invention by a group of teenagers who recently won a patent thanks to the work of a pro bono lawyer.

Josh Tucker, partner in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in Austin, worked for the Westlake High School students to patent the invention, ChapR, a wireless Bluetooth controller for homemade robots.

He explained that in robotics competitions, a team must build a robot to complete a task such as driving a beach ball through an obstacle course. Normally, competitors would use a video game controller hooked up to a $2,000 laptop computer to control the robot.