SJND Robotics Team Exciting Update
Written by Troup E. ‘27
The SJND Robotics team has just finished their first robotics competition at Piedmont High. They competed against 25 other schools for the state championship.
Tensions were high as the team entered Piedmont High for SJND’s first Robotics competition last Saturday. As they looked around the room for the first time, they saw hundreds of people all there for the same reason — to secure a spot in the state championship. The SJND team saw robot after robot, each more complicated and expensive than the last. “I didn’t know we were sending our robots to Mars,” said Reuben, a freshman at SJND.
In FIRST Robotics competitions, there are five qualifying matches to determine which teams move on to state championships. In each match, you are teamed up with another team to try and get the most points. You get these points by completing tasks that you designed your robot to complete. Every year, the tasks change so no robots are ever the same. This year’s challenge is to place hexagonal pixels onto a board in a specific color pattern.
Each of the competing teams had the advantage of having more time than SJND to prepare. The idea of having a robotics team at SJND was proposed by Ms. Countryman and Mr. McKee at the beginning of the year, which also happened to be when the very first match took place. Although the SJND robotics team got a late start, they did not let it stop them. They worked countless hours and even over weekends to get to the place they were in. Ms. Countryman, one of the heads of the robotics teams, said, “I am so proud of them and excited to see what future competitions hold.”
In the first battle, SJND came out strong. Quickly the SJND team discovered that their robot was well-equipped to push the hexagonal plastic tiles (aka pixels) across the competition ring to their teammate. The teammate then placed the pixels on the board. This seamless teamwork made quick work of the challenge and the team finished strong.
Things went downhill from there. In the second round, the robot begins to malfunction. The robot was unable to raise its boom because it got stuck in the downward position. The robot was neither able to pick up nor push the pixels to assist the teammate. Instead, the robot went through a series of fits and starts and essentially sat idle while its teammate and the competitor teams worked to fill the board.
Then, things turned around for SJND in the third round. The team regrouped between rounds and put their heads together. They found that the gear ratio for the boom was off. It turned out that the servo (a small directional motor) was not able to lift the heavy boom. They came up with a plan to change the orientation of the gears so that a smaller gear drove a bigger gear, which took strain off of the servo. (To learn more about how gears work, click here.) After the team made these modifications, the robot performed better than ever, and the team was able to place their first pixel on the board.
Despite all odds, such as having a late start and this being their first time competing, the SJND robotics team managed to pull through. They didn’t come in first place, but they did bring home SJND’s first FIRST Robotics trophy after placing 9th out of 25 schools. But perhaps most importantly, they came back with the experience of competing in a First Robotics competition.
