Patch Blog: Robots Take Over MHS

This past Saturday, Dec 10, 2011, I had the pleasure of attending the FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC) Robotics competition held at .  It was a day filled with teamwork, collaboration, science, and fun for all the students involved and it was a lot of fun to watch!

FTC is a robotics competition for high school students based on a sports model. Teams of up to 10 students are responsible for designing, building and programming their robots to compete as alliances against other teams. 

Teams are paired with another team in an alliance during each match and they score points by placing racquet balls into crates and then stacking the crates.  There is a 30 second autonomous period where the robots run preprogrammed and a 2 minute driver controlled period where they use wireless remotes to try to earn points. 

Six pound bowling balls are also located in the field and can be moved up a ramp or positioned in specific locations to earn more points.  The alliance with the most points wins the match.  The top 4 teams in each of two groups were then able to select their alliance team and move on to the semi-final round.  Once in the semi-finals, teams stay in the same alliance and the alliance with the best 2 of 3 matches goes on to the final round.  The finals were also based upon the best 2 of 3 matches.

This is the first time Monrovia High School has hosted the FTC event and only the second time attending the event.  The Monrovia High School Math and Science Academy (MASA) helped put on the event.  I spoke briefly with Kristin Ford, MHS's MASA Coordinator, who explained a little about the Math and Science Academy--which is in its 4th year of existence.  They are graduating their first group of 52 students that have spent all 4 years in the program at the High School.  MASA helps provide opportunities for the students to learn about Robotics, Rocketry, and many other focuses in Math and Science fields.

Last year MHS had one team compete at the FTC Robotics competition and this year MHS competed with three teams.  The MHS team names were Dark Matter 4153 (they were the veteran or returning team), Banana Pudding 4625, and RoboCats.  also sent two teams (5498 and 4947) to compete at the High School level competition and they did very well holding their own with the older High School students.  In fact one of the Santa Fe teams won the Judges award.

I spoke with Alanna Koritzke, one of the MHS MASA students taking on a Public Relations role for the teams, about how they prepared for the event.  She said the teams each had whiteboard meetings to collaborate on ideas for the robot's design and get input on strategies.  They then assigned people to different tasks such as drivers, PR, builders, and programmers. 

She said the programming is a very important part of the system as they need to program the robot to autonomously push the bowling ball into a specific corner.  She felt they really collaborated together as a group as the veteran team helped out the other two teams by helping set expectations from their past experience last year.  Alanna said it has been great having a room dedicated in the new Science Building at MHS for MASA as they set up a practice are where they could work on the robots after school.

Monrovia High School's veteran team Dark Matter ended up making it all the way to the finals, only to lose first place in the last round to an alliance of teams from Encinitas and Lancaster.  Dark Matter was paired in an alliance with the Warriors, a team from The Rock Academy in San Diego.  There were 36 teams total that competed over the course of the day coming from as far away as San Diego and Techachapi to compete. 

It was great to see our future engineers at work and the creativity and energy that they all brought to the competition.

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