High School Robotics (VEX and Skills USA)
Challenge: VEX Skyrise - 2014 to 2015 - https://www.roboticseducation.org/vrc-skyrise/
My senior year I worked with VEX robotics on the Skyrise challenge. For most of the year I spent about 6 hours or more per day working on robotics, coming in before school, during lunch, extended learning period, robotics class, after school, and on weekends and snow days if our instructor was willing to do so as well. All along the way I kept an engineering notebook documenting every aspect of the process. My team's robot, 9571D The Iron Giant, took first at nearly every regional competition, and was awarded the design award at the state competition. We qualified and attended the world competition as a school/team with just over a year of experience! We won 6 of 10 games we competed in and ranked 150th out of over 7000 teams worldwide.
After VEX Skyrise was done for the year, my partner, Jacob, and I worked on Skills USA mobile robotics technology. Skills USA is focused more on career skills and technical competencies. They use the same hardware as the VEX competition, but had a different design challenge/game. We took our bot to Illinois state, competed, interviewed, and tested there. We got 1st place and headed to nationals. At nationals an additional challenge was presented, we had just 6 hours to construct our robot from scratch and replicate the success we had at the state competition. We did well and got 4th place.
My time working in robotics during high school was a great learning experience. I had the privilege to work with technology, tools, and computers in a way many other people my age didn't. I got to learn about mechanical and electrical concepts hands-on and grow my skills extremely quickly. Another important aspect of my time in high school robotics was to find out the challenges and benefits of working on a team of motivated people. To work on a team with other motivated people striving towards the same goal was quite fulfilling.
Oct. 2014, Myself with regional competition awards for early-season VEX robotics design.
For this competition, I was on a team by myself. I had created a robot that was simple and limited in capabilities, but this allowed me to focus on build construction. Having a solid robot that wasn't liable to break during the matches was key. This also built a solid foundation for a consistent autonomous routine at the beginning of the match.
February 2015, Mid-season robot, 9571D The Iron Giant, ready for state competition (left) & design award given at state competition qualifies us for VEX world competitions (right).
This far into the season myself and two other students had come together to collaborate on this robot, which was very much required due to the high complexity of it. The robot was very good at this point and ready for the Missouri state competition. What actually continued our journey to VEX World's competition was the engineering journal I had curated along the building process. The journal awarded us the design award and a seat at World's.
April 2015, Robot 9571D The Iron Giant VEX World's reveal video.
I created this video to gain recognition for my team as a first time team/school attending the competition and increase the possibility of forming an alliance with another team in the alliance selection section. I had a good time both showing off the capabilities of our robot and including fun music and information about our journey as a team.
April 2015, Robot and robotics team (Me, Nathan, Mr. Huggins, Jacob, Charles) at VEX World's competition.
At World's we had an incredible experience. We did very well considering we were new to the robotics landscape. Our school's program was just 1 year old at this point. It was interesting and rewarding to cooperate with teams like one we were paired with from the Philippines. They spoke no English at all and we had to communicate our strategy using a white board showing the game field. We won 6 of 10 games and lost 2 to untimely electronics failures.
April 2015, Myself and Jacob, We received 1st at Skills USA Illinois state in mobile robotics.
We took our robot to Springfield, Illinois. We competed on the field, took individual tests regarding field competencies, and interviewed with industry professionals. This qualified us for Skills USA Nationals.
May 2015, Nathan, Myself, and Jacob, Illinois state capital Tech Day 2015, special recognitions for outstanding achievement in robotics (VEX and Skills USA).
We did very well in robotics that year overall. We were invited to Tech Day at the capital building floor where we displayed our robot and talked with members of Congress. We were each awarded a special certificate applauding our accomplishments. It was awarded by the state Congress and signed by the Speaker of the House.
