Opelika
High School and Opelika Middle School both have a Robotics Team that recently
competed in the War Eagle BEST Robotics Competition sponsored by Auburn
University. For this event, teams
receive a challenge. This year students were
challenged to build robots that could transport and assemble parts for windmills. These teams work for six weeks to construct a
robot that will be able to complete the challenge. Not an easy task. Below are a student’s thoughts on this
process.
My name is Codey Bracknell, and I’m a sophomore
at Opelika High School. The reason I got
involved with the robotics’ team is because I wanted to try something new. I am
in the Project Lead the Way engineering class, and one day Mrs. Howell was
explaining how robotics worked. I wanted
to try it out and see if it was fun, and I also wanted to meet new people. The main thing I like about robotics is being
able to design and share ideas. Even if
your idea is not so great, it can still be a good idea because it might have a
little piece in it that the team can use.
When we started to
design and build the robot, our main focus was on what type of wheel design we
needed and what the shape of the claw would be. Our prototype’s claw couldn’t pick up any of
the game objects but the way we had the wheel system setup was perfect. So we
kept the wheel design and changed the claw’s shape and how it worked. We made the claw into a hook that rotated up
and down kind of like a dump truck picking up a big trash can. Our team won the 2nd place
Founder’s Design Award for our robot design.
One challenge that our team had was how we would approach
the game field and how many points we could score in 3 minutes. So, the team
came up with the strategy of picking up 1 chicken, hitting the permit switch
with it, and then getting that chicken out of the way. We would then move the other chicken out from
in front of the bridge and open the bridge crossing gates. After that we just started picking up windmill
objects and taking them to the other side since they were worth 30 points apiece.
I was the first driver at the
competition on Saturday, and I followed our strategy. But when I picked up the chicken and rammed
the permit switch, the chicken came off and fell on to the other side of the
game area. After I was finished I got
all the other drivers together and told them we needed to go with a different
strategy and just pick the chickens up and get them out the way instead of
trying to perform tasks with the chickens hanging on the hook. We went with our new plan and it worked. We were #4 out of 22 teams in the seeding
matches and advanced to the semi-finals (top 8 teams). We tried to use the same strategy again and
it almost worked, but we just didn’t do as well driving and ended up 5th
or 6th and didn’t advance to the finals. This year’s robot was a success, because it
could consistently do everything we designed it to do.
The things I learned
from being on the robotics’ team are that no one is perfect and no one is too
smart. Everyone has flaws in life and everyone has their good and bad days.
Another thing I learned is that duct tape does not, I repeat does not, fix
everything. Being in robotics inspired me to go ahead and keep doing robotics
next year because the best thing I like about it is designing and building the
robot and seeing if the idea works. Once you do it and it ends up working you
get to say “hey, I helped design and build that robot”. So, the biggest thing I learned is take pride
in your work whether you win or not; if it works in your head you’re still
number one. I keep saying that no idea is too good and no idea is too bad and
don’t be afraid to comment or share ideas that you have because you never know
when one of your ideas might help more than you think.
We are proud of the hard work our teachers and students put into this
endeavor. This work is done completely
after school and receives no state support (locally funded). Below is a picture of Axle, the OHS robot.
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