Robotics program takes kids to world competition | Arts … – goanacortes

When it comes to competing against the best of the best of robotics teams around the world, its not only about the robot. Its also about strategy.

The Anacortes High School FIRST Robotics team (aka the Cyborg Ferrets) just returned home from a fourth consecutive trip to the FIRST worlds competition, this time in Houston.

The team of 24 students and 21 mentors had its best-ever showing this year, senior and chief systems engineer Eliot Briefer said. During competition play, about half the team is with the robot. A team of five is actually out on the field. Theres a driver, a coach and a few others performing tasks.

Other team members are out scouting the competition and potential alliances. Different teams have different strengths, so its important to pickv alliances that complement your team, senior Noah Hieb said.

Most of that is just compiling data, junior Katherine Butler said. Scouters watch every match, track other teams and converse with their strategy mentor to see which potential ally might be the best fit.

Each year, the robotics season starts at the beginning of the year. On Jan. 7, a video is released by the FIRST organization, along with rule book detailing that years game.

The game is always different with new challenges to complete, Briefer said. The first task is to build a model of what the game might look like to help team leaders decide what elements the robot might need.

Strategy sessions are followed by build season. The team meets three days a week after school for three hours a day, plus eight-hour sessions every Saturday. Some team members stay in the robotics lab for hours beyond that, Butler said.

We see more of each other than we do our families, so we become like a family here, she said.

Each robot across the world has certain regulations on it, like weight and how much money can be spent on materials.

Six weeks after building starts, each robot must be sealed into a bag until competition begins. At competition, judges ensure that robots have remained in the bag until competition so that each team gets the same amount of time to complete its robot.

Most design work on robots at AHS is done via Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) programs.

Manufacturing is done at the school, using a plasma cutter, 3-D printers and other technology. Some teams send out for pieces to be molded or bent, but Briefer said the Cyborg Ferrets prefer to do the work themselves.

The team also visits district competitions around the state. Teams earn points at each competition, and the top-ranked team becomes the first alliance captain and asks two other teams to join them in the final rounds.

If the second-ranked team has not been asked to be a part of the first alliance, it becomes the next alliance captain and so on.

Each team is awarded points for several factors. In addition to being ranked at each individual competition, each team is ranked in the district.

AHS was ranked first in district points at the end of the preliminary season this year. At the Pacific Northwest District Championship, it took the lead early and was the first alliance captain.

The team was ranked first among 155 teams across Washington, Alaska and Oregon, program manager and junior Elisabeth Jenkins said.

It also had a strong showing at the world competition in Houston.

We did enormously better than last year, Briefer said. And that was enormously better than the year before.

After qualifying matches last year, the Cyborg Ferrets were the last of 32 teams picked to be a part of an alliance.

This year, it was the fourth alliance captain, asking teams from Israel and California to join.

The team made it to the semi-finals.

This years game challenged the teams to place gears, shoot balls into a basket and climb a rope, something the team had never done.

Its all about timing, Briefer said. The coach stands on the floor, keeps an eye on all members of the alliance and on the time. Sometimes, its about deciding whether completing a task in the time remaining is worth the risk.

Other times, its about defense. Blocking an opponent from completing its goal, for example, could result in victory.

Dylan Jimenez has served as the driver for the Anacortes team for two years. He had to pass knowledge tests on the rules and prove he should have that job. He said its a lot of pressure.

You know there are 24 people watching you, he said.

Another part of the competition is public outreach and setting up the pit. In addition to being a place to work on the robot, the space is decorated by the team to showcase to competitors what the team is like.

This AHS team decorated its pit like a Victorian factory to match the games steampunk theme, Jenkins said.

The world competition is in a NFL football stadium, with eight fields of competition all going at once, she said. The games draw a crowd of about 30,000. Teams get to meet kids with similar interests from all over the world.

These are people we would never meet any other way, Briefer said.

While the FIRST robotics at the high school level has been the most successful in terms of world competition appearances, there are other levels of robotics available to students, Jenkins said.

The FIRST Tech challenge is similar to the general robotics team, she said. It is aimed at high school students but features smaller robots.

The FIRST Lego League is open for students ages 9 to 14 years. Each project has a theme and a mission to complete.

The FIRST Lego League Junior is open to kids 6 to 9 years old. The teams create Lego models with moving parts and present to judges about them.

Learn more at team3238.com/home or email anacortesrobotics@gmail.com.

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Robotics program takes kids to world competition | Arts ... - goanacortes