Sitting Bull students awarded in robotics tournament – VVdailypress.com

By Joselyn Villalobos Staff Writer

A few weeks ago, the Sitting Bull Academy robotics team competed in the Greater Los Angeles Botball Tournament, finishing in 11th place out of 22 teams in the region and earningan Outstanding Documentation trophy for a perfect score in their engineering process.

Botball is an educational robotics program that allows middle and high school-aged students to team up and build two fully autonomous robots that are eventually entered into a tournament.

The students may not touch or interact in any way with their robots once the game begins. All of the robot actions and reactions must be programmed by the students, Sitting Bull junior high technology teacher Larry Kendall said.

Sitting Bull's team of seven students began working on their robots on Feb. 12. In previous years, the teams could work on their robots during school, but this year all work was limited to after school hours.

Our team started practicing just Tuesdays and Thursdays after school until 4 p.m. By the end of the season, we were meeting five days a week after school until 5 p.m., Kendall said. In all, the students invested hundreds of hours of their time.

In the tournament, there are multiple point opportunities for completing tasks, which can be done in any order. Sitting Bull received recognition from the judges and organizers as the only team in the nation to attempt and successfully complete the empty the fertilizer hopper challenge.

The point values were not huge, but the fact that we did this where no one else even tried was a big deal for our team, Kendall said.

The students are required to submit extensive documentation of their planning and engineering process online throughout the season. For the first time, Sitting Bull Academy exceeded limits in a perfect score, earning them an Outstanding Documentation trophy for their planning in the tournament.

Apple Valley Unified School District spokesperson Kristin Hernandez shared an additional "fun fact":

"Five of the seven students on the team were female," Hernandez said. "STEM fields have historically been predominantly male and it's exciting to see so much female participation."

Sitting Bull Academy is hopeful they will compete in the Botball Tournament again next year.

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Sitting Bull students awarded in robotics tournament - VVdailypress.com