Robots bolt with conclusion of contest
Spartan Daily - March 20, 2006Video
The whirr of electric motors and the smell of solder filled the San Jose State University Event Center this weekend as 40 high school robotics teams faced off in a game called "Aim High" at the Silicon Valley regional contest of the FIRST Robotics Competition.
"It's a cross between a rock concert and the Final Four," said FIRST regional director Jim Beck.
San Jose's Bellarmine College Preparatory school won the regional competition for the eighth year in a row, defeating an alliance led by Pioneer High School in San Jose.
Bellarmine team member Ben Margolis said "dedication" is the key to the team's success.
"At least three of us have been staying till 12 or 1 a.m. at the lab," Margolis said.
This was the second event of the year for the Bellarmine team, which is known as the "Cheesy Poofs." The team traveled to Portland, Ore., two weeks ago for the Pacific Northwest regional.
"We were successful in Portland," Margolis said. "We got first."
The annual robotics competition is organized by FIRST, or "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology," which held its initial contest in a New Hampshire gym in 1992.
In this year's version of the international contest, 1,133 high school teams from seven countries had six weeks to build a robot for three-on-three matches of "Aim High."
The robots scored points by pushing, launching or dumping balls into three goals at each end of the 26-foot wide, 54-foot long playing field. On the short sides of the field, two ground-level goals provided soccer-style targets for the robots and one round goal hung 10 feet in the air like an oversized basketball hoop turned on its side.
In each match, three teams joined forces as an alliance. Two alliances battled each other, trying to score points while defending their own goals.
During the first 10 seconds of each match, the robots operated in "autonomous mode," executing a pre-planned program while the students waited behind thick, plastic walls at either end of the field.
As each autonomous period ended, the students leapt forward to grab the joysticks and steering wheels that acted as remote controls for their robots.
The Bellarmine team's winning robot, the "Black Knight," launched balls from a transparent plastic chute.
"We want to shoot as high as possible," Margolis said.
The "Black Knight" boasted a slimmer profile than some of its rivals, and was able to rapidly fire off a series of balls from its hopper, scoring early and often.
While one or two students handled driving and shooting duties, others shouted instructions or lobbed balls back onto the field of play, trying to supply their robot with ammunition.
Meanwhile, hundreds of young mechanics and electricians watched the action from the pit area behind the playing field, waiting to tune up their robots, make adjustments to their software and repair damage sustained on the field.
Although the teenage engineers get most of the attention in the pits, it also takes mascots, cheerleaders, Web design, public relations, scouting and leadership to round out the team, according to FIRST regional director Jason Morrella.
"Schools can evolve and make it as big as they want to," Morrella said.
Cheesy Poofs mentor E.J. Sabathia, a junior at SJSU majoring in aerospace engineering, said his Bellarmine team has about 50 members this year.
"We've got a whole team in the pit scouting," Sabathia said.
Bellarmine is methodical about how it chooses alliance members, said Los Altos High School senior Nick Khorlin, a member of the Eagle Strike team.
During the preliminary rounds, the three-team alliances that make up each side of a match were chosen randomly.
On Saturday afternoon, the top eight qualifying teams led alliances of their choosing into the final rounds of the contest.
Going into the finals, the Bellarmine team was on top of the standings, closely trailed by its rivals from Los Altos.
"They've never lost this regional," said Craig Hickman, a sophomore at Los Altos. "We're going to beat them," Hickman said on Friday afternoon.
Hickman demonstrated his robot's targeting system, which automatically tracks a green light placed behind the 10-foot high target hanging above each end of the field.
Jay Danver, a Los Altos sophomore, said one difference in this year's team is the presence of several female students.
"That's because the judges don't like it if you don't have girls," Danver said.
In fact, three all-girls teams competed in the regional event this year, including Gatorbotics, from the Castilleja School in Palo Alto.
"It's frustrating," said Castilleja senior Jennifer DePuy.
"At times, people will assume because we're girls we don't know anything," DePuy said. "We enjoy proving them wrong."
DePuy said she got into robotics because she had always been interested in "how things work."
The Castilleja team also competed in Portland, where they placed 26th out of 46 teams.
"Everything they learned from Portland, they've thought about now," said Emily Ma, a team mentor.
Ma is a mechanical engineer at Palo Alto design firm IDEO, one of the team's sponsors.
"I went to an all-girls school growing up," she said.
As a girl interested in engineering, Ma said she had few role models.
"If you can convince them that they're competent and can do things on their own, they'll be set," Ma said.
On Saturday afternoon, all-girls Gatorbotics and Los Altos High formed an alliance with a team from Mojave High School in Southern California, but they were eliminated from the competition in the semifinals by the eventual second-place finishers, an alliance led by Pioneer High's Apes of Wrath.
The Bulldogs from East Palo Alto High School faced the challenge of competing against more-experienced and well-funded teams in the competition.
"I think we're a little overwhelmed now that we're here," said East Palo Alto math teacher Leah Tuckman during Thursday's practice rounds.
"We've been working so hard," said East Palo Alto freshman Kiara Gaytan. "It's been fun."
The Bulldogs fielded an entry with less chrome and polish than other teams, but garnered compliments from other teams for the large ball-catching net mounted on top of their robot, Gaytan said.
Math teacher Justin Green said his East Palo Alto team was getting plenty of advice from its neighbors in the pit area.
"We're lucky to have very experienced teams on both sides of us," Green said.
Near the entrance to the pits, a sign asked the young engineers if they "remembered to bring their gracious professionalism."
Even while angling for an edge against their rivals, the competitors freely offered one another help, in the form of spare parts, fresh batteries and jewelry screwdrivers.
Parents at the event said their kids get more out of the competition than experience building robots.
"The real benefit comes in working as a team," said Steve Strutner, whose son Scott is a junior at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose.
Mike Schmit said the competition gave students a taste of real-life industry experience.
"Engineering isn't a guy sitting in a basement," Schmit said. "In industry, you work as a team."
Schmit's daughter Stephanie is a junior at Archbishop Mitty High.
The team from Bellarmine will advance to the 2006 championship, to be held in Atlanta's Georgia Dome on April 27-29.
Other award-winning schools from this weekend's event will also travel to Atlanta to compete.
Just participating in the robotics competition gives students the chance at over $8 million in scholarships, said FIRST regional director Jim Beck.
"Universities see the value of what's being taught to these students," Beck said. "They want FIRST competitors."