Monthly Archives: March 2017

The object of the game for the 60 teams of high school students was to pick up stars and cubes and deposit them in their opponents' territory.

And they had to do it with robots they had built themselves.

The students were participating Saturday in the VEX Robotics Competition, a statewide competition held at Dundalk High School and Sollers Point Technical High School. The event aims to expose students to engineering design while teaching them other skills, such as communication, team building and strategic development. Those who got to compete Saturday had won other local competitions.

"It's about engineering design, but it also teaches them many other valuable skills," said Katrina M. Hill, regional support manager for the Mid-Atlantic region of the Robotics, Education & Competition Foundation, which hosted the competition.

The teams spent the day playing rounds of a game called Starstruck. The highest- scoring teams advanced to the next rounds and then to the finals.

Using remote controls, the students drove robots that they designed, built and programmed over several weeks. They maneuvered their robots to pick up the stars and cubes, which they then dropped over a white fence onto their opponents' side. The more objects they got on the other side, the higher their points. Cubes were worth twice as many points as stars.

The game was designed by VEX Robotics Inc. and students used parts built by the company.

There are rules they have to follow when building their robots. For instance, the students can only use a certain number of batteries or sensors. The robots also have to be a certain size.

Chris Putnam, a Hereford Middle School teacher who helped organize Saturday's competition, said that the students end up building several versions of their robots to get them to do what they want.

"They keep building and testing and rebuilding," he said. "If they make it this far, they've worked hard. A lot of kids don't have the patience to keep it up."

The teams wore matching shirts emblazoned with names like Rebel Robotics. One team wore white dress shirts and bow ties.

The crowd was raucous at times as the competition occasionally became intense. One team would throw a star over, just to have their opponent throw one right back.

David Ahmed, a senior at Eastern Technical High School in Essex, said he has been interested in robotics since middle school and wants to one day study computer science. The robotics competition is preparing him for that, he said.

"They force you to think," he said. "They force you to be creative and come up with unconventional ideas."

Anthony Arroyo, a junior at Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts, said he has always liked to build things.

"I feel like this competition brought that to life," he said.

Fifteen teams from Saturday's competition will go on to compete at the VEX Robotics World Championship. Towson High School won the Excellence Award, the day's top prize.

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High school students compete in robotics - Baltimore Sun - Baltimore Sun

The Crosby-Ironton High School robotics team was doing better in the competition on Saturday than it did on Friday, team members reported. This year is the team's second year in existence. The students were trying to improve using what they learned during last year's competition and were doing better than they did last year, 10th-grader Walker McKee said.

In this year's challenge, teams needed to build a robot that could pick up and put balls into a "boiler," move gears and pull themselves up a rope.

Michael Serfling, an 11th-grader at Crosby-Ironton, explained that he learns skills while building the robot that he doesn't learn in school.

The team focused on building a robot that could move the gears and kept coming up with new ideas to test out, McKee said. Serfling explained that creating a robot that could climb a rope was difficult, and they burned out a motor while testing their robot. McKee added that it's a lot of trial and error and readjusting different parts of the robot until it works.

The challenge was "very different" this year, but the Iron Mosquitoes robotics team from Northeast Range School in Babbitt didn't have to create an entirely different robot compared to robots they've built in previous years, 12th-grader Chad Wills said.

The Babbitt team did well in its inaugural competition two years ago, but this year was harder because there were more aspects to the challenge, he said.

"The climbing seemed like it would be the hardest thing, but that was our top priority, and we got that working pretty early," he said.

As a relatively new team, the Iron Mosquitoes are trying to learn and improve with each year.

"It's taken three years to do it, but we're getting a hold on it," Wills said.

The Rock Solid Robotics team from Two Harbors High School spent the first week of this year's season getting a grasp on the game because this year's challenge was so different, 10th-grader Kristin Haveri explained. From there, they designed and built the robot, but the different aspects didn't mean they needed to construct a robot that was vastly different from previous years, she said.

The most challenging part of building the robot was getting it to climb the rope, Two Harbors 10th-grader Navah Swoverland said. The competition started out rough for the team, but the robot climbed during the team's last three matches, and the team won its last two matches, Haveri said.

This was Two Harbors' fifth year of competition, but they have a young team this year and the lack of older, experienced students on the team added a level of difficulty, Haveri said.

"The best part was working with a team because we're such a small team, but everyone knows each other. We all are friends and get to work together," she said.

Hibbing High School's robotics team focused on building a robot this year that could move the gears and climb the rope because those two aspects were worth the most points, 11th-grader Maria Valentini said.

"It's just different games (each year). They're all pretty challenging; there are just different aspects," she said.

The most challenging part of the season was sorting through all of the ideas to come up with the design for the best robot, she said.

She's enjoyed the camaraderie of Hibbing's team this year, she said, adding, "There are a lot of really hard challenges, and it was nice to see the things we worked hard on working out for us."

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Robotics teams climb to new heights at regionals in Duluth - Duluth News Tribune

Chaning Green | Buy at photos.djournal.com Middle and high school students from all over the state congregated in the Tad Smith Coliseum at the University of Mississippi on Saturday morning to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge. Students have been working for months on their robots that they had to design and build for the event.

By Chaning Green

Oxford Citizen

OXFORD The FIRST Tech Challenged returned to the University of Mississippi campus for the fifth time Saturday morning.

This years competition, hosted at the Tad Pad, featured middle and high school teams from across the state seeking to complete a challenge with the most amount of points and be declared champion.

Each year, teams participating in the FIRST Tech Challenge are required to build a robot that in order to most efficiently complete an assigned task on a small pitch. This years challenge was called Velocity Vortex. The challenge required students to design and build a robot that can fit in an 18-inch box. The robot can expand, but must be able to fit into that box in its smallest form. The pitch is divided diagonally, a red side and a blue side. Teams are stationed on each side of the pitch and given a number of whiffle balls that they must put into elevated goals in order to earn points. Four beacons are clipped onto the sides of the pitch, two on each divided half. The robots must be able to independently press a button on their appropriate beacon. In the center of the pitch under the elevated goal posts are two, 21-inch balls. If competitors are able to lift these balls and set them on top of their goal, they are awarded a whopping 40 points.

Students were on the floor of the Tad Pad in costume, some with crazy-colored hair or shoulder pads made of duct tape and broken CDs, light-up pins and stray microchips, looking like fallen cyborg warriors from the future. They were in tents set up all over the coliseum floor that held banners with their team name in big letters. Teams were huddled together making final adjustments to their robots. Others were in the few pitches set up on the court, making practice runs. Some of their robots had tall, extendable arms and tubes and turny bits that fired whiffle balls at targets with deadly accuracy.

Tupelo Middle School was at the competition, competing under the team name Wavebots. This is the first year for TMS to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge. Team members spent the last several months preparing for the competition. Students stayed after school multiple days a week, programming, coding and building to get the perfect robot. Last year, the middle school had an after school activity involving robots, so this wasnt the first go round for some of the eighth-graders on the team.

Judy Harden teaches science at the middle school and is the faculty advisor over the Tupelo Wavebots.

She said that shes been so impressed with how dedicated all of the students have been when working toward this competition.

All of this has been totally student-led, Harden said, before the competition Saturday morning. They built the robot entirely themselves. Our engineers didnt come in and help them get started. We got a sponsor, ACCO Brands out of Booneville to help us and theyve been a really huge help to us, financially and otherwise. They even sent two engineers over to check out or robot there at the end. Were hoping next year to go even bigger.

Harden said that this getting ready for this years competition was so much fun that there are already students looking to join the team next year. She expects the Wavebots to be bigger and even better for next years FIRST Tech Challenge.

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Students gather in Oxford for statewide robotics competition - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

For the second year in a row, the robotics team from the Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy has advanced from the Regional Championship competition at Northern Arizona University, and will represent our region in Tacoma, Washington, at the Western Super Regional competition.

The InFALAbles, a third-year team from FALA, competed against 41 other teams from Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico to secure one of only four spots to advance to the next level of competition. Locally, Coconino High School and Basis also had teams at the competition.

The team designed and built a robot that could successfully accomplish all the missions presented in the Velocity Vortex challenge. They were also recognized with the Connect Award for their success in outreaching to the community at events such as the Flagstaff Festival of Science, and will continue to support STEM activities at events like the upcoming STEM night at the NAU Skydome Monday night.

The students on the team continue to build their skills at manufacturing, programming and computer aided design as they move forward in this competition. Their coach believes that FALA has long had a reputation for outstanding programs in the arts, and this achievement proves that it should not be overlooked for its outstanding STEM programs as well.

Coach Merri Sue Carter said, We are building a real, sustainable STEM program at FALA. We have competitive teams in both our middle school and high school programs. No student should be forced to choose between the arts that they love, or the technology that represents development in the future. They can, and should, pursue their passion for both.

Juniors Cydny Clark and Wyatt Clark were also recognized for their exceptional contributions to the team with a nomination to the FIRST Deans List award. The Regional Championship was hosted by the Coconino High School robotics program, which is multi-award winning program that facilitates robotics at every level in our region.

The FALA robotics program is coached by FALA science teacher Rich Krueger, Naval Observatory astronomer Merri Sue Carter, and Naval Research Laboratory engineer Jim Clark. Sponsors Personnel Systems, Dr. Mclaughlin Orthodontics, LuLaRoe Jeanne Woolverton, and Sams Club have helped the team with expenses. The team is actively seeking more sponsor support to pay for the trip to the next competition. The Takoma event will be held March 10-12 at the Takoma Convention Center.

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FALA robotics team advances to regional competition - Arizona Daily Sun

Today is Robotics Day (unofficial) on the Front Porch. If you are the sort of person who thinks robots will cause the end of humanity as we know it, shield your eyes and find a different article to read.

The Vex Robotics State Championship was Feb. 24 in Hailey, and of course, Canyon Countys schools had a great showing.

The most applause, however, goes to Caldwell High School, whose Ares Ballistics team finished the tournament as one of two runners-up to the tournament champion, Wood River High School (which was the host school, by the way, but I dont suspect cheating).

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Ares Ballistics also received the Judges Excellence Award, which will send them to the World Championship in Kentucky in April!

Another major event award, the Design Award, went to Ridgevue Highs NOVA team, so it gets the next round of applause. (And if were talking about team names, another of Ridgevues teams,The Gentlemen, gets my vote for classiest.)

East Valley Middle School also competed, and as far as I can tell, it was the only middle school involved! While they didnt win every time, these kids did take home their share of victories and will be so much stronger when they get to be in high school and, you know, can actually compete against their peers. Keep an eye out for this team!

To finish my results report, the Nampa School District team M.I.G. finished in the top 10, as did Caldwell Highs Ares Ballistics and Leos Bosses teams.

Congratulations to all of you, and good luck to the members of the Ares Ballistics team for that World Championship!

Vision Charter finishes FIRST Tech Challenge in 8th

My second robotics tidbit concerns the FIRST Tech Challenge, which was Feb. 11 in Moscow. Vision Charters robotics team, Beauty Bot and The Beasts, competed and finished in eighth place out of 26! They are now headed to the next level of competition.

Beauty Bot & co. was given the 2016-2017 Championship Tournament Finalist Alliance award and the Control Award, which celebrates a team that uses sensors and software to enhance the robots functionality on the field, according to Sammy Samuelson, clerk of the board at Vision Charter School.

In an email to the IPT, Sammy went on to say the Control Award is given to a team that demonstrates innovative thinking in the control system to solve game challenges such as autonomous operation, enhancing mechanical systems with intelligent control, or using sensors to achieve better results on the field.

Members of this team include Paul Riebe, Steven Schofield, Patrick Millar, Esther Schofield, Paige Busmann, Matt Jones, Makenna Doramus, Alex Harrold and JJ Riebe.

They spent five months preparing for this competition, along with 400 hours spent mentoring local children in robotics.

In short, each team member deserves a high-five the next time you see them. And the next couple times after that, for awesomeness and service to the community.

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Front Porch: Caldwell High robotics team qualifies for World Championship - Idaho Press-Tribune