NEWFANE: Robotics team completes successful year

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Joe Olenick/STAFF

March 30, 2009

By Joe Olenick<br><a href="mailto:joe.olenick@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Joe</a> The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Mon Mar 30, 2009, 02:43 AM EDT

NEWFANE — The Newfane Circuit Stompers can handle a little lunacy.

The high school robotics team is wrapping up its 2009 season that included a third-place finish in each of the regional competitions the Stompers participated in. Besides competing in Rochester and Philadelphia, the team also took home a few awards, including Best Web site, a safety award and the Xerox Creativity Award.

“This year was pretty good,” said senior Karra Silvis, Circuit Stompers president.

The competitions are run by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, a worldwide organization that brings students, professional engineers, scientists, business leaders and other mentors together to promote science and technology as career possibilities. FIRST competitions require students to design and program robots to complete certain tasks.

Every year starts with a kickoff event in which teams learn what tasks their robot will have to perform. This year’s task was called “Lunacy,” where the robot had to collect balls of different point values from a playing field and either dump or shoot them into their opponent’s trailer attached to the robot. But it had to do this while keeping the opponent’s robot from doing the same thing to their trailer. Lunacy was done on a special surface built to make it feel like the robot was on the moon. The surface, called “regolith,” was slippery enough for ease in moving the robot, which also had to have plastic wheels.

Junior Erik Taheri and sophomore Rollin Hellner said the robot’s design started off as two separate ideas. One incorporated a belt mechanism that could shoot the balls, another idea was to use flippers. The Stompers decided to use the belt in front, which would draw the balls off the field and into the robot. The balls then could be shot out of the robot in two spots, one right above the belt and another spot that involved three sections of flippers on top of the robot that each could launch a ball. Using both the belt and the flippers proved to be a better design idea. Newfane’s robot could pick up and shoot balls very well.

“They were both very efficient,” Hellner said.

Newfane’s robot also was faster than most of the other robots, but with reduced traction, controlling it could be hard at times.

“It did surprisingly well,” Taheri said.

Each competition was comprised of matches that were about two minutes and 15 seconds in length. For the first 15 seconds, the robot was in “autonomous mode,” meaning it was running on programs and sensors. Then for the two minutes, teams had control of the robot.

During the matches, teams had to compete in an alliance with two other teams against another three-team alliance. During the Philadelphia Regional, Newfane matched up with the Lockport High School Warlocks. Newfane was able to make it to the semifinals but ran into a roadblock.

“A team from Philadelphia, had a large robot,” Taheri said. “It kept pushing ours away. They also had a shooter on top, which allowed it to shoot balls in any direction.”

When the Philadelphia robot got close, it could dump a lot of balls into an opposing trailer. The Philadelphia team also had two stronger teams in its alliance. Newfane lost in the semifinals for a third-place finish.

Still, 2009 was a great ride.

“This was my first year, and it was a thrilling experience,” junior James Edwards said. “It was very rewarding.”

Edwards’ job was to manage the drivers, keep things on schedule and act as the secondary driver of the robot. There were also some other benefits the Circuit Stompers reaped, including taking an educational tour of Philadelphia when they traveled there to compete earlier this month. They also learned a lot from designing and programming the robot.

“These kids get a lot of out this,” said Rick Coleman, a community member who is an adviser on the team. “And this was one of our better years.”

Bill Neidlinger, a retired teacher who serves as coordinator on the team, said the Circuit Stompers were grateful for the mentoring and support they receive from Delphi Thermal Systems.

“We’re very lucky,” he said.

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