Jaclyn Figg
Staff Writer
Loud music and young adults rushing to make last minute touches on their ball-heaving robots set the mood for the VEX Robotics championship Friday, Jan. 29.
The Pond Student Union Ballroom opened its doors to 25 robotics teams from around Idaho, eager to test the limits of their robots.
“For most of them it’s not their first competition of the year, but they’re all excited to compete and it’s fun for us to put it on,” said Vice President of the robotics club Rhett Martin, who has been a member of the ISU Robotics Program for five semesters.
Hosted by the ISU Robotics Club, this event is an opportunity for young adults involved in the VEX robotics competitions to test their 18” x 18” x 18” “Nothing But Net” themed robots.
Martin said after speaking with several of the students, he believes robotics really gets young adults interested in not only robotics, but also some of the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
Jancy Buttars, a senior at Westside High School in Dayton, Idaho, has been participating in the robotics club at her school all four years she has been there.
“The hardest part is just starting, coming up with an idea that you can actually visualize,” said Buttars.
There are five others in Buttars team, the Pirates, who participate in the competitions to have fun.
“I want to go into engineering, so this is nice. It’s fun to be able to practice building things and problem solving,” Buttars said.
Caleb McCart, a sophomore from Meridian Technical Charter School, has already been in three competitions this year with his robotics team, The Dragons.
The Dragons won their first competition of the year. “We’re guaranteed a spot in state, but we are continuing to come to the competitions even though we don’t need to so we can test our bot against other peoples’,” McCart said.
According to McCart, it takes upwards of 100 hours to make a full robot, from spending a month making a test robot to rebuilding the final product every day after school for two weeks.
There is a lot of thought, and sometimes frustration, needed to make a robot for one of these competitions between building the robot as well as coding it and working out the bugs said McCart.
Students don’t necessarily have training before making these robots; it is through a process of hands-on learning the young adults figure it out.
“I played with a lot of Legos and K’NEX when I was a kid so it all just sort of comes naturally,” McCart said, adding, “the technical part of it comes from using the VEX manuals and research.”
Parker Parish, a senior on McCarts team, wrote all of the coding for their robot. He researched on his own time how to write C++, a code almost identical to the robot C code according to McCart, and using the knowledge he gained, programmed their robot.
“My goal is to go to MIT. That’s where I really want to go to college because they have an amazing robotics team,” McCart said. “But if I can’t get into there I was actually planning on coming to ISU because I know they have a pretty good robotics program.”
Wood River High’s Wayne Enterprises and Sideways Minds, Caldwell High’s Automata and Nebula Robotics, Wood River Middle School’s team Fortress as well as Vallivue High’s team, The I.T. Crowd, made it to the final two matches.
Wayne Enterprises participated in both matches with Sideways Minds for their first alliance team and Fortress as their second alliance team coming in first each time.
