Bedford High robotics team inspires – Toledo Blade

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TEMPERANCE Bedford High Schools robotics team added another notch to its belt at the FIRST Robotics World Championship in St. Louis.

Although the Express didnt repeat its 2015 success of capturing a world title, the team did go home with one of the most prestigious pieces of recognition up for grabs: the Engineering Inspiration Award.

The award recognizes outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a teams school and community, and automatically qualifies them for next years world championship event in Detroit. NASA will also pick up the tab for next years $5,000 registration fee.

It was very surprising and probably one of the best feelings Ive ever had at a robotics competition, said senior Olivia Miller, who serves as electronics captain. I know the amount of effort we put into that award was all worth it. Its really exciting knowing our team is going to worlds next year because of our efforts.

Coach Debbie May said more than 120 teams were up for the award.

The Express made it out of the qualifying round at the tournament last weekend, finishing 16th. They teamed with the WildStangs from Arlington Heights, Ill., and Gompei and the HERD from Worcester, Mass., to form their alliance.

As the 8th-ranked alliance, Bedfords group had to face the top-ranked alliance in the first elimination round match.

The matches are three versus three, so its always a little dependent on luck and how good the other teams are that youre with, Ms. May said. We were not always partnered with teams who were able to perform the same [as us], so it made it a little tough.

Bedfords alliance won the first match in the best-of-three series, but dropped the final two. One of the teams on the opposing alliance from Greenville, Texas, has won multiple world championships.

A former member of the Express is interning there, and serves as a mentor to the team.

We were 16th in our division and beat one of the best teams in the world, senior and build captain Charlie Cook said. Overall, we performed very well. It was a fun match.

This years FIRST gameplay theme was steamworks. The object of each match was to make an airship take flight by retrieving gears with your robot.

Once 13 gears were placed, four rotors on top of the airship began to spin.

There was something that involved climbing a rope that was four or five feet high, said senior Sam Synowka, a member of the drive team. Sometimes robots would climb and it would either fail to stay up or the rope would break, so the robot would fall.

The Express had a 100 percent success rate in climbing the rope, which was the final step of this years matches.

Teams are given six weeks before the competition season begins to build their robots. During that time, most students log more than 200 hours perfecting their machine.

This coming weekend will be the first one theyve had free since January, Ms. May said. Its going to be hard to let go of this class. We always say its not just about the robot; the robot is the vehicle to get these kids inspired. Thats the type of thing that keeps me invested in this program.

Contact Jay Skebba at:jskebba@theblade.com,419-376-9414, or on Twitter @JaySkebbaBlade.

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Bedford High robotics team inspires - Toledo Blade