Robotics teams are gearing up

ESCANABA – Two local high school robotics teams are working diligently on their robot designs for a competition to be held downstate next month.

Escanaba High School’s Robomos is in its second year of existence, having competed in two downstate For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology competitions for the first time last year.

According to Robomos coach and science teacher Marie Young, the Robomos consist of approximately 30 members this year, and is divided into a number of specific groups focusing on various aspects. They include promoting and fundraising, website design, and building the robot itself – which entails programming and wiring the robot. Each FIRST robotics team must compete in two qualifying competitions in order to advance to later stages.

“There are five weeks of competitions and each team needs to attend two to qualify for states,” explained Young. “And it’s not a given that you qualify. You have to have enough points between those two competitions.”

This year the Robomos, along with Gladstone’s FIRST Robotics team, will compete in Traverse City in March before heading to downstate Niles to compete. Until then, each robotics team has six weeks to build a robot from scratch. FIRST supplies each team with a kit of items to build their robots, but the kits only include items such as batteries, screws, motors, some computer software – not everything needed to fully complete the robot, said Young. Rookie teams receive a bigger supply kit than teams who have competed before, but the repeat teams are able to recycle parts from their previous robots.

The theme for this year’s FIRST competition is “Rebound Rumble,” based on a basketball game concept, with an added component of having to balance on a bridge, said Young.

“There’s different parts to the game and the trick is to try to create a robot that’s good at each one of those parts of the game,” she said.

Some things they need to keep in mind when building the robot include how to shoot and pick up the balls, and how to get the robot on the bridge as well as how to balance it on the bridge.

This year marks Gladstone’s debut in the competition, as they decided to put their 30-member team together in the last couple months, according to their coach and science teacher Tim Barron.

“It’s been in existence for around 20 years,” said Barron, of the FIRST program. “This is our first year here of doing it. It sounded cool over the years, like it would be fun to do, but I was too busy to take it on, and decided to try it this year.”

Barron said there is a lot that goes into creating the robot, such as putting together the chassis, which is basically the frame of the robot with the wheels and the motors, in addition to wiring and programming it. But once students start putting the robot together and getting it to gradually work, one step at a time, it is a rewarding experience.

“The good thing about it is you line up a lot of adult mentors from the area,” he explained, as engineers from NewPage, EMP, and even parents, have come in to lend their assistance.

“We’ve appointed a student president, and we’ve got it divided up into committees, we call them, to get all these various jobs done,” explained Barron.

Barron expresses his thanks to J.C. Penney, the major sponsor for Gladstone’s team this year, and noted other businesses and organizations are helping to offset costs for additional robot parts needed and toward the expenses for the competition itself.

The Robomos’ major sponsor is EMP, Young said, with representatives from the company serving as mentors and working hands-on with the group. However, she noted there are a number of community sponsors who have provided them with materials, mentoring or supplying funding, since the program can get costly when factoring in travel costs and purchasing additional parts for the robot. A list of local sponsors is being collected at this point, she noted.

“It’s truly an investment for community businesses and so forth to see the high school kids here get this type of a hands-on experience. It’s just huge,” she said.

After six weeks of working on their robot all teams have to “bag and tag” their robots at midnight on Feb. 21, which means they must all stop working on them at this time. Once their first competition is over, they also have to bag their robot before the next competition, giving them only six hours during the week of the following competition to fix any problems they faced with their robots the first time around. This is where having a big budget and many sponsors comes into play, as some schools create two robots so they can work on one while the other is bagged.

Some ways the Robomos are raising funds for their group include a 3-on-3 basketball tournament later this month, as well as selling energy efficient light bulbs, wristbands, and planning a golf tournament.

As for the future of robotics in the area, Young said Escanaba is planning to host a competition next year. They wanted to host one this year, but could not get it to work out, he added.

“There isn’t really any held in the U.P. whatsoever because it’s sort of a growing thing now in the U.P.,” said Young. “Gladstone’s in their first year, Marquette had their first year last year along with us …That would be great to have one in Escanaba, so that’s our intention and our plan is to actually have one here next year.”

Approximately 2,400 teams are expected to participate in the FIRST competitions this year. The purpose of FIRST is “to help high school-aged young people discover how interesting and rewarding the lives of engineers and scientists can be,” according to an overview of the competition.

For more information on either robotics teams, contact Escanaba or Gladstone high schools. The Robomos’ website is located at www.wix.com/eskystudentcouncil/robomos.