Robotics Team Updates the Community at Morning Ex

Members of the Upper School Robotics team conducted a Morning Ex talking about their season to date and what lies ahead.

Team members described the FIRST Tech Challenge, the league in which they compete. FTC is a hands-on robotics program for middle and high school students (grades 7 through 12) that challenges them to design, build, program and operate robots to compete in themed challenges. Participation fosters STEM skills, teamwork and innovation through a sports-like season with tournaments, community outreach and potential college scholarships. FTC is part of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization offering a mid-level robotics experience through FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Robotics Competition. 

Students then spoke about the nuances of this year’s game and the challenges of designing, constructing and programming their robot to accomplish the year’s specific tasks during competition to earn points. This year’s game is archaeology-inspired, and gameplay has teams program custom-built robots to follow autonomous commands before student drivers take control in two-on-two matches. Teams can score points in a number of ways, and early on in the brainstorming process, team members consider the best ways to design their robot to get the most points. In particular, this year’s game requires robots to shoot plastic balls of varying colors into a goal to earn points, and teams can acquire additional points if the sequence of the balls landing in the goal matches a randomly generated pattern during gameplay.

Groups of students discussed how they bring a winning robot to life each season. After FIRST shares the challenges of the season with teams across the globe, Parker’s team engages all members in an initial brainstorm to consider a wide range of options: whether they want a large or small robot, how they should design to ensure ease of maintenance throughout the season and whether a vertical or horizontal launching mechanism would work best. With ideas in mind, another team of students created an initial design of the robot using Solidworks software. Students use 3D printers and a CAD machine to create pieces of the robot’s design in house and combine these disparate elements with other available parts in the actual build of their robot. Another team is responsible for bringing the robot to life with Python programming. This group shared that they used April tags (fiducials like QR codes) integrated in the game field with their understanding of physics and coding skills to help their robot auto-aim and shoot at the goals during gameplay—taking some of the cognitive load off the human drivers.

The FTC program requires outreach as well, and Parker’s team has partnered with Google and engineers for a number of years, allowing for teams to share institutional knowledge from season to season. Looking out for other teams, Parker’s team is also working on a website that will allow less-resourced schools to request 3D printed parts for their robots from Parker—helping Parker’s team to be a resource to others in a very real way. The team has also opened the school’s doors to the international robotics community by founding and hosting the Chicago Robotics Invitational, which attracts the best teams from around the world to Parker’s campus.

To conclude the Morning Ex, the team invited volunteers to the stage for a hands-on demonstration involving their initial robot from this season. Students had a chance to try and shoot a plastic ball into the goal, just like the student team in competition. A question-and-answer session followed, when students shared their favorite parts of being on the team, their biggest challenges and more. In bringing the assembly to a close, presenters reminded all in attendance that the team was always looking for new members.

Enjoy photos and videos from the Morning Ex here.