Robosapiens head to world robotics competition in Houston
Students with Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School Robotics Club will be making their third appearance at the FIRST Robotics Worlds competition next week.
Robosapiens, as the group is called, qualified to attend the event after their performance at the state championship in Saginaw. The group is one of several in the Blue Water Area and one of two heading for worlds, alongside Richmond High School’s Blue Devils.
The World Championship will be held April 17-20 in Houston and will see student robotics teams from across the world demonstrating how they designed their own machines to compete in a game of “Crescendo,” a game designed specifically for the competition.
Robosapien’s students shared their creation with the Times Herald as it went through final testing and packaging for transport Tuesday. Ben-Jamin was designed to pick “notes” (foam hoops) off the ground and can either dump them into an “amp” container or launch them into a “speaker,” both of which it will be required to do as it competes with 600 other robots.
The students were given two months to design and build Ben-Jamin after reviewing a video that showed the rules for Crescendo. After coming up with an initial design, the students were split into several teams.
There’s the build team, which handles the construction of the robot’s parts and hardware, and handles repairs as needed. The programming team writes the code needed to operate the robot, including an autonomous program that runs for 15 seconds at the beginning of each game.
The business team raises funds for the robotics team, which needs about $50,000 a year to operate and cover travel expenses for the competition. Lastly the drive team handles the operation of the robot in competitions.
Over time there have been adjustments made. Ryan Miller, team captain and leader of the build team, said when the team went to Traverse City, they realized Ben-Jamin was too slow at loading notes into the amp, limiting their chance to collect bonus points, so they went back to the drawing board.
“We’ve gone from having this seven-second score time to about three seconds, which ended up being a big contributor to our success at state’s,” Miller said.
Many of the students started with only a passing interest in robotics, saying they joined the club for the promise of free pizza and an extracurricular activity to fill out their schedule, but once they got involved they found a new passion that could help them prepare for future careers.
“With the help of the programming team and the course that I learned here in robotics, it’s definitely helped me build a foundation toward what I’m going to do in the future,” said Eddie Foster, captain of the programming team.
The older students teach newer club members the basics of robotics, often recruiting middle school students with no prior knowledge in the field.
Mentors like Roy Miodonski, who has advised the team since it was founded in 2012, fill in the knowledge gaps as needed, though he says the senior students are almost as knowledgeable as him by the time they graduate.
“You fill in what they can’t do,” Miodonski said. “You lead them to the point of sensing they’re uncomfortable. We’re blessed now with some experienced seniors, but sometimes we have a young team and work more with them to build the robot.”
Though the team is all set to go to Houston, Miodonski said the team is operating with a deficit while it raises the funds to cover the travel costs. The business team has been reaching out to local businesses for support, but still needs to raise about $18,000 to cover the costs.
Donations can be made online at Robosapiens’ official website at https://sites.google.com/view/robosapiens4779/home.
Contact Johnathan Hogan at jhogan@gannett.com.
