Moore West robotics needs help to reach world competition – Norman Transcript

MOORE Moore West Junior High's robotics team has met regularly after school since September, perfecting their machines and the code that runs them.

It's put the students on the cusp of a global stage, as high marks at the state competition in Lawton on Feb. 11 qualified Tiger Robotics for the VEXIQ World Championships. The competition begins April 23 in Louisville, Kentucky.

But there's one, fairly substantial, problem: money, and plenty of it in a short amount of time.

"I'm excited, but it's also a lot of extra work," Donna Haworth, Tiger Robotics coach and teacher at Moore West, said. "When you have kids who are dedicated, work hard and are excited, they get stuff done."

The team launched a GoFundMe account about a month ago, seeking $15,000 to send 10 students to Louisville. As of Tuesday night, the page showed just $1,500 had been raised.

Haworth said the team is looking for a corporate sponsor that would shoulder some of the financial burden. But to get the team including parent chaperone Chad Miller, who set-up the GoFundMe to Louisville, they're in need of the community's help.

Haworth's after school group used to meet during school, as well. When Moore West's robotics teacher retired, budget cuts meant her position went unfilled and no other teacher could incorporate the class into their schedule.

"We're hoping to get it back in the schedule at some point," Haworth said. "They learn so much, it's worth having the after school program."

So, Haworth scheduled meetings with the group outside of school hours, and 24 students showed up. It was enough for two teams in the VEX IQ competition this year, both of which qualified for the world competition.

Haworth said she wants to start a third team in the next school year: all girls.

"I've always liked technology," Cheyanne Sutton, Moore West student and member of the robotics team, said. "If something would break, I'd take it apart. When I came here and there was robotics, I thought I might like it, because I have a lot of those DIY robotics kits."

The students have various reasons for joining. Joseph Falcon said he likes the people he gets to work with, and Camden Miller Chad's son said he enjoys doing something he wants to make a career some day.

"Ive always wanted to be a developer and a programmer, and I feel like this is a good step toward that goal," Miller said.

And some like Emeka Nkurumeh simply enjoy solving problems.

"It's really gratifying when you have a problem and figure it out," he said. "You solve it, but then it presents another problem, so you just keep going and going."

The problem-solving aspect is one reason why Haworth said she chose to do VEX this year. The task to perform sounds simple enough in robotics terms: in a single playing field, take all of the orange or blue covered objects from one side and across a ramp to the corresponding shelves on the other.

In VEX, the middle school division works with kits and sanctioned parts, keeping the use of potentially dangerous tools at a minimum. The teams decide what parts to use, and where, and they develop the way to make the robot do the tasks on its own.

That's where programming comes in. Haworth said much of that was self-taught.

When you first look at it, it really is overwhelming," Falcon said. "What helped me a lot is you focus on one specific area of it. Gradually, you get more experience and learn more and more until you become a really good programmer.

After spending much of the fall semester building and bettering, Tiger Robotics began putting its skills to the test in VEX competitions. They won trophies in Muskogee before high marks in programming and robot skills driving it well booked a ticket to the World Championships.

"It's a lot of on the spot problem solving," Haworth said. "They problem solve, see what other teams do and say 'Hey, let's try that.'"

Just on Tuesday during a demonstration, Vincent Tran, one of the team's main drivers, noticed one of the platforms used to lift objects wasn't level. After a quick inspection, Nkurumeh went back to a box of supplies and produced a sort of axel that held the two sides level.

So long as VEX-approved parts are used that don't drastically change the robots which go through inspection before the competition begins this sort of on-the-fly problem solving and innovation is not only allowed, but what the competition is all about.

"I think if you focus not on the actual competition, but what youre doing in every day meetings, what youre doing here, and doing your best, not wasting time, thats what got us this far," Falcon said. "Through all of our engineers constantly trying to work on the robot and make it better, and with the programmers striving to get measurements right, get it perfect, thats what drove us this far."

And in a little less than two weeks, the team hopes it can take them a little further. That is, of course, if they can get there.

Anyone interested in donating to the Tigers Robotics cause and helping them compete at the World Championship can donate at GoFundMe.com/tigers-robotics-world-competition. So far 20 people have donated to the cause, as of Tuesday night.

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Moore West robotics needs help to reach world competition - Norman Transcript