It's Robotics Time Again

Chris's team getting ready to score a tube

Yes, it is once again robotics season and Chris's team is off to a great start. They got their game way back in January. This year it was to build a robot that could pick up inner tubes of different colors and shapes and hang them on a wall. They would get 3 points for the top level, 2 for the middle, and 1 for the bottom. If they could program the robot to hang a tube by itself during the first 30 seconds of the game, they would get 6 points and their points on that level would double. If they could put the inner tubes in a certain order on the wall, that was also worth points. In the last 10 seconds, they could release a mini robot to climb a pole. First one to the top gets 30 points, second 20, etc.

The kids worked until the last week of February, when the robot had to be sealed up, and then hauled it to Kansas City this weekend to compete in the Kansas City Regional. They got off to a pretty good start. They had a couple problems, but were always one of the teams consistently scoring. Despite having problems with their minibot falling off the robot the first couple games, they had it running up the pole by the last match.

The way the competitions work is that they play 9 qualifying matches randomly sorted into alliances of 3 teams. At the end of those matches, the top 8 teams pick 2 teams that they want to compete with in the quarterfinals. Chris's team didn't finish high enough to be one of the top 8 teams, but they were picked by the 2nd seeded team. Their alliance dominated their quarterfinal matches, winning 2 games to 0. They then made a real fight of it in the semifinals winning 1 match and losing 2 other real close ones. In fact, they were leading in the last match by over 40 points, but one of their teams sent their minibot up the pole too early and it didn't count. If it had, they would have made the finals. Very exciting!

They also brought home 2 awards, the entrepreneurship award for how they run their team and a runner-up award for safety.

They will now come back home with everything they learned in KC and get ready for the Denver regional on April 8.

Deploying the minibot