Geared up

SPENCER DURHAM

KOKOMO TRIBUNE

Members of the Northwestern Cybertooth robotics team sat around a TV screen last week at AndyMark.

They were coming off a twoday competition at Western High School that featured 40 teams.

Cybertooth was among the alliance — a group of three different robotics teams competing together — that finished in third place.

The team went over things they did well at the competition and what needs more work.

“We won lots of awards” was on the list.

Cybertooth won the autonomous award at the district-level event. The award goes to a team that performs well during the autonomous period of a match. Robots operate autonomously during the first 15 seconds of a match and are programmed ahead of time by the team.

How well a robot positions itself and completes tasks factors into the award.

“We’ve started to win a lot more awards,” said Zach Smith.

The Cybertooth team put in 28 hours of drive time — practice operating their robot — ahead of the Western competition.

“I think we were pretty confident in our ability,” said Lydia Keiter.

Cybertooth was the second ranked team at the competition, based on the number of ranked points it earned. Ranked points are earned by completing certain tasks during matches.

The Northwestern robotics team is at Washington High School this weekend for a competition.

The game format of a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition changes each year.

This year has an under-the-sea theme. There are pieces of coral to put on a reef, algae to throw into a net and cages to hang on to.

Robots place pieces of PVC pipe — coral — on pegs of various height. The higher the placement, the more points a team gets.

This requires a robot to have some sort of lifting mechanism.

The algae are oversized green kickballs. They are wedged in

See ROBOTICS on A5

Northwestern junior Camden Yard works on the Cybertooth robot at AndyMark. Area robotics teams are in the middle of their season.

Photos by Kelly Lafferty Gerber | Kokomo Tribune

Western PantherTech senior Ian Mouser works with mentor Doug Edison on their robot.

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between the pegs. This requires a robot to be able to flick them out and either move them out of the playing field through an opening on the side or lift them up.

Points can be scored by throwing the balls into the barge — a net above the playing surface — either by the robot or team players.

“This game, I feel, is a lot harder,” Smith said.

“It’s way more precise,” Keiter added. “It takes a lot of practice to get it down.”

There is a period at the end of the match where robots hang on cages. This is also worth points.

With many ways to score points comes different strategies.

For the Kokomo Techno-Kats, the focus is maximizing point scoring. The team’s strategy is placing game pieces at the highest level.

Speed, efficiency, durability and losing weight were focuses during practice last week for the Kokomo team, along with improving autonomous mode. “This year is way more complicated,” said Kelton Serra, part of the TechnoKats drive team. “It’s more fun than I thought it would be.”

Multiple teams use the AndyMark warehouse as a practice site. That includes Kokomo and Northwestern, along with Western, as well as Indianapolis-area schools.

Westfield and University high schools practiced the evening the Tribune spoke to Kokomo and Northwestern.

Vinrai Boparai is the operator of the TechnoKats robot. He’s the one who tells the robot where to put the game pieces it picks up with the push of a button.

Boparai is also part of a statewide group of robotics students who collect and share data. The data is available to all teams.

“The team gives me a lot of opportunities to do new stuff,” he said.

Teamwork and what FIRST Robotics calls “gracious professionalism” are important aspects for competing. Matches feature three teams from different schools competing together against another group of three.

It’s also common for teams to lend parts. And schools root each other on.

“You wouldn’t think a room full of engineers would cheer so loud … it’s so great,” Keiter said.

The game format requires students and their adult mentors — each robotics team has adults who help with build and design — to find an angle that allows robots to place the pieces at different heights.

All robots have a mechanism that allows it to lift game pieces to various heights.

The same robot also must have the capability to pick up, dislodge and move the large balls, too.

“You have to figure out how to pick both of them up and score them in different locations,” Serra said. “I think it’s nice to have more of a challenge this year.”

The TechnoKats finished second at the Western competition, an improvement from a third-place finish at a previous event in Mishawaka.

“Our trend is like straight up,” said Trenton Spidell.

“We’re hoping to follow the trend at states,” Serra added.

The state competition starts Thursday.

Spencer Durham can be reached at 765-454-8598, by email at spencer.durham@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @Durham_KT.

Mentor Andy Baker helps Kokomo sophomore Kaiden Hatfield with robot work for the TechnoKats at AndyMark.

Kelly Lafferty Gerber | Kokomo Tribune