Aragon Robotics Team hosts middle and elementary school competition

On Feb. 9, the Aragon Robotics Team (ART) hosted the 2013-2014 Northern California FIRST Lego League (FLL) Championship, the first robotics competition ever hosted at Aragon. FLL is a robotics league where participants construct robots out of Lego parts. The theme for this year’s competition was “Nature’s Fury,” in which all aspects of the competition shared the common goal of solving a natural disaster.

ART members served as event staff, operating the snack shack, acting as emcees, and aiding with logistics. In addition, Aragon’s a capella group September sang the national anthem at the opening ceremonies.

The event was divided into four competitions: Robot Performance, Core Values, Project, and Robot Design. Teams had the opportunity to win either first or second place in each component. There was also a larger Champion’s Award given to the team that performed best in all four.

Robot Performance assessed the ability of each team’s robot to aid in a natural disaster simulation. Teams placed their pre-built robots in a pit in the gym and were given the task of performing certain natural disaster-themed missions, some of which included knocking a branch off a fake palm tree without disturbing a power line and climbing up obstacles.

Teams were awarded points based on the number of missions they were able to complete in two and a half minutes. A team’s best score after four rounds would then determine their standing in the competition; the team with the most points was declared the victor of that category. Team M from the San Mateo area won this part of the competition, achieving 471 points on their best round.

To win the Project award, teams came up with a project—completely separate from their robot—to solve a natural disaster. Judges scored these projects based on the depth of research, how innovative their solution was, and the quality of their presentation, with two winners in each category.

DisasterBotz, a team of middle schoolers from Bayside STEM Academy in San Mateo, won first place in the innovation category. Their project, called the Wildfire Unit Positioning System (WUPS), was an idea for goggles that would aid firefighters in the situation of a wildfire. WUPS would use a geographical positioning system to display a map of the locations of other firefighters on the goggle.

DisasterBotz member and eighth grader Jessica Beskind says, “We actually went to the Foster City Fire Department and talked to some of the firefighters there, and they said that their main problem in fighting wildfires is communication, so we brainstormed ideas to solve the communication problem.”

In Robot Design, judges evaluated teams based on the quality of programming they used, their strategy of innovation, and mechanical design.

The Robot Design judges were impressed by the way many teams effectively employed gyroscopic sensors, a tool used to sense movement in three dimensions. Robot Design judge Keith Gudger says, “There is a gyroscopic sensor, and a couple of the teams discovered the inaccuracies [involved], and found ways to calibrate and compensate for it. We thought that some of them had some really innovative solutions.”

In Core Values, judges had teams perform a charade and give a presentation on their robot and project. They evaluated these teams based on three criteria: teamwork, inspiration, and gracious professionalism (or attitude) in the competition. Says ART member, volunteer, and junior Guy Geva, “A big part of FIRST is a thing called ‘gracious professionalism.’ That’s essentially good sportsmanship and working with other teams, even if you are against each other.”

In addition to winning the Robot Performance part of the competition, Team M from the San Mateo area won the Champion’s Award and will head to the the FIRST Championships this April in St. Louis. Robby Shield, an eighth grader at the Odyssey School in Hillsborough and member of Team M, says, “My sister went to St. Louis when she was in FRC [the high school robotics league], and it’s really nice to go to St. Louis also. I couldn’t be happier.”

ART member, volunteer, and senior Priyam Das reflects on the event, saying, “I think that overall the event went quite smoothly, which is really great for our first time. I’m really happy that the Aragon Robotics Team had the opportunity to give back to the FIRST Community by hosting such a huge event.”