InTech students build robot that shoots hoops

For most people, designing and building a mobile robot with the
capability of picking up small basketballs and shooting them
through a hoop with regularity would be the hard part.

But for a couple dozen students on the MegaBots team at InTech
Collegiate High School, it’s coming up with a name for their robot
that has been the real challenge.

“I suggested calling it Hayward to see if we could get (Utah
Jazz forward) Gordon Hayward to come to our competition,” team
captain Tyler Dewey said. “But we might be calling it Om Nom
because it kind of goes around and eats everything in front of it.
We still haven’t decided because you kind of let the name come out
of its personality, and we haven’t had enough time to judge it
yet.”

Saturday night at Pastarama, the annual MegaBots’ fundraiser at
Bridgerland Applied Technology College, the team put on a
demonstration of the abilities of the still nameless robot who may
or may not resemble Cookie Monster.

A couple of glitches had made it a “crazy day,” according to
adviser Jim Baker, but after banking in a basket on the seventh
attempt, driver Paul Hart had the robot dialed in and successfully
nailed six of the next seven shots.

“It’s been a scramble,” Baker said, “but it’s not a big deal. We
can still use it, we just have to be really careful and baby it.
But when we’re in the heat of competition, we can’t baby it, so
we’ve got to make it bulletproof.”

The MegaBots team started this year’s project Jan. 7, and have
until today at 11:59 p.m. to complete it. After that, the robot
will be sealed up in a bag and can’t be touched again until the
FIRST Robotics competition March 15 to 17, at the Maverik Center in
West Valley City.

This is the fourth time InTech has competed in the event, which
is called Rebound Rumble this year. In 2011, the MegaBots squad
finished third in qualifying and lost in the finals in a
competition based around robots hanging tubes up on pegs.

“I think it’s important for the public to realize that what
these students are doing is molding what our future is going to
be,” Baker said. “This is as close to an authentic engineering
problem that anybody is ever going to find. There are engineers who
see what we do and just scratch their heads and say, ‘How do you
get it done in six weeks?’ I mean, I’m right in the middle of it,
and I can’t hardly believe what they get done. It’s really amazing
what these students can accomplish with a little direction.”

Playing on a 27-foot-by-54-foot court, Rebound Rumble is
essentially 3-on-3 basketball with robots used specifically for
defense and interference, while the offensive robots shoot at four
different hoops with point values of one through three, depending
on the height. The individual robots form alliances with other
teams and play a round-robin tournament with the best “player”
earning a trip to the national tournament in St. Louis.

By tournament time, the MegaBots plan to have a camera system in
place that will allow Hart to steer the robot without having to
worry about setting up for a shot. After locking in on the basket,
the shooting turrets track the target and move independently.

“The best thing about this robot is it’s almost 100 percent
student-built and designed,” Dewey said. “Other than a little bit
of machining that we had to do to build the frame, we’ve done all
of it ourselves.”

Now a senior, Dewey has been a part of all four of InTech’s
FIRST Robotics projects. He said the team’s experience has
definitely paid off as it’s been able “to put the pinnacle of all
of our knowledge forward.”

Conversely, junior Holly Flann is on the team for the first time
this year and regrets not joining earlier.

“It always looked so amazing and fun,” she said.

As the designated rebounder Saturday, Flann was the only one
getting a genuine workout during the demonstration as she chased
the foam basketballs all over the room. Explaining that she just
wanted to “help out anywhere she can,” Flann said she hadn’t
learned anything more about real basketball by working on the
project.

“I’m a better shooter than he is,” she said with a confident
smile.

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jhunter@hjnews.com

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