Upper school robotics team’s season comes to a close
April 14, 2016
The upper school robotics team, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team 1072, ended its season after participating in the FRC at the University of California at Davis from March 23 to March 26.
The team placed 51st out of 60 teams in their alliance. During and before their matches, team 1072’s robot suffered several mechanical failures.
“We had a couple of mechanical errors, so the robot wasn’t able to move for a couple of rounds,” new team member Anooshree Sengupta (10) said. “But the team worked well, considering that there were a lot of new members.”
The competition involved teams of robots attempting to shoot balls into the other team’s goals. In order to shoot, the robots would have to pass through a variety of different barriers, including doors, bumps, seesaws and bars, before approaching the goals. Team 1072 aimed to design a robot that would be able to pass through all of the obstacles.
“When we designed our robot, we had to think about how we could take all of these obstacles on,” team mentor Brian Oldzieweski said. “We had a problem every match partly because the robot was a little more complicated than we were ready for and partly because of bad luck. That’s the catch with these things. The more complicated you make it, the more things can fail.”
The team began preparation for the competition at the start of the school year by training newer members of the team, who joined one of the four subteams — mechanical fabrication, electrical systems, software development and operations. During the six-week build season, members of each subteam devoted their time to creating the robot, preparing for the competition and fundraising for the competition.
Vice President of Mechanical Fabrication Isaac Smith (12) works on the robot during Team 1072’s build season. The team will showcase its program to incoming freshmen at AnswerQuest on April 19.
“I’m a programmer, so I joined the software subteam and helped program the robot. I also made a website for us to gather information about other teams and their robots,” Ashwin Reddy (9) said.
After the competition, the current leadership discussed what improvements they could make for next year’s team.
“This year, we were more organized, and we had more of a concrete plan going into the competition, but I think we could have a more systematic version of the team, improve recruitment and have more fun than we had this year,” operational president Neymika Jain (11) said. “Also, during the competition, we had a lot of internal conflicts, but we’re resolving them now, and hopefully we’ll be enhancing the team in the future.”
Team 1072 will showcase the robotics program to incoming freshmen and their parents at the AnswerQuest on April 19 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Sarah Gonzalez (11) participates in metal shop training. The Subatomic Smarticles will travel to St. Louis to participate in the World Championship from April 27-30.
Students participate in robotics competitions outside of school
FRC Team 5677, the Subatomic Smarticles, which includes juniors Antony Sagayaraj, Ashwin Rao, Elena Bronder-Chang, Preethi Kandappan, Sarah de Vegvar, Sarah Gonzalez, Vedaad Shakib and Winifred “Winnie” Li, senior Naman Jindal and Aditi Khanna (8), participated in the FRC Central Valley Regional Competition in Madera from March 10 to March 13 and the Silicon Valley Regional Competition at San Jose State University from April 6 to April 9.
The team performed well at both competitions, becoming one of seven teams from the Central Valley Regional Competition to advance to the World Championships and garnering a Judge’s Award at the Silicon Valley Regional Competition. Additionally, Sarah, the team captain, was awarded the Dean’s List Award for excellence in leadership.
“I think [robotics] is a great way to hands-on learn and apply the things you learn at school,” Sarah said. “It’s also very engaging and fun to do.”
The team, which is based in San Jose, is composed of students from different schools, who meet in their spare time to build the robot. During the six-week build season, the team met after school to create the robot and prepare for the competitions. The students were split into teams that built, designed and programmed the robot, as well as a team that handled fundraising and publicity.
“Through robotics I’ve learned mechanical and electrical design and how to work closely with others to achieve a goal,” Winnie said. “Since I manage the business plan of our team, I’ve also acquired management and communication skills.”
Although the team is relatively new to robotics competitions, having started last year, members of the team have gained valuable experience from it.
“I joined the robotics team because it allowed me express my passion of building things and learn and experience things I can’t get from another club,” Naman said.
The team will travel to St. Louis to participate in the FRC World Championship from April 27 to April 30.