The girl’s robotics team, named the ‘Robbadies’ led their way into State in Rolla Missouri at S&T University, on March 2. This sets a high standard for them as they competed in their second year together as a team. The team headed off with four members all of whom competed in six rounds for the robot to advance to Nationals. Along the way, they faced challenges that ultimately led them to not qualify for Nationals.
“It was a lot of fun and the girls did get a lot out of it,” robotics advisor Mike Green said.
The year prior, the team could not advance on a technicality, but now the team headed in through winning the ‘Inspiration’ award at regionals.
“We definitely worked hard this year to go to state and it sets a good example for future students to know we can do it,” President and senior Mary Niu said.
36 teams head into State with four members each. Each team has four roles, the coder, the driver, the builder and the human player. The rounds consist of four teams that pair up in a 12×12 box with a mixture of goals for the robots. The judges look for performance in how well it can move objects, how the robot itself moves, coding and documents over the robot. With the game changing each year this year consisted of the robot’s ability to place pixels in a certain pattern, with the help and guidance of the human player.
“Every year you keep advancing your skill sets and that’s mainly what we’re looking at doing,” Green said.
Although they did not advance to Nationals they are looking toward the areas they can improve on and are proud of the documentation aspect of their robot. They hope to advance in the movement of the chassis, mechanic wheels and being able to recognize imaging. They also look forward to setting off the next set of games next season in the new building.
