OHS Robotics Teams Celebrate A Successful Year

One of the OHS Robotics Teams robot was making its way around the high school cafeteria on Thursday evening.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Oskaloosa Robotics Teams capped off a successful year with a dinner Thursday evening in the High School Cafeteria.

Joyce Eveland, one of the coaches for the teams is proud of the accomplishments the students have made this year, as both robotics teams qualified to attend the Iowa Championships in Iowa City on February 25th.

The arena where the robots compete requires several different elements of the teams and it’s machine to complete. The robots have to be both agile and powerful in order to compete at a high level.

A match would start off with four robots and 100 racquetballs, 12 crates, and 2 bowling balls. “It gets crowded,” was how Eveland described a robot match. “It’s easy to get [points] when your the only one, but when others are trying to defend their territory then it gets a little more cumbersome.”

An interesting aspect of the competitions is how competitors can be on your team the next round. The trick is to not let your allies of the moment know all your secrets, because you may once again have to take them on in competition. “They call it an alliance”, Eveland said of the short-term cooperation teams may have.

The robots come in a kit. “Our first kit came from Rockwell Collins, and our second kit came from our local JCPenny store.” Eveland explained, with each kit costing around $1,000.00.

The kits come in tubs, “it’s like a huge erector set”, and with everything the kids need to build.” The robots have to be 18″x18″x18″, “but once it’s out there on the field, it can open up and get bigger.”

“There are constraints like the real world has,” Eveland stated, because “the goal is to give them a real business world experience.”

Those experiences are translated into problem solving, communicating as a team, along with getting designs from thought to paper and then to the real world. “They also program the robots, so they learn some computer programming,” Eveland said, pointing then towards design software that is used in class as the same software used in the real world.

Points are scored on different levels, with the first 30 seconds of a two minute and thirty second match being the most critical. If in the first 30 seconds, you had programmed your robot well enough that it would move a bowling ball to a predetermined spot, it’s maximum points for your team. The strategies for scoring and also defending are countless and determining how best to score points on the course are constantly evaluated. “It’s analyzing and coming to a conclusion,” Eveland explained.

If your interested in seeing the robots in action, stop by Penn Central Mall during the Pine Wood Derby there on March 31st.