This year’s teams from Hunter, Tyner, and CSAS Middle Schools will experience a competition rehearsal this Saturday, Nov. 15, in the Challenger Center at UTC from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.  Ed told us the competition day is frantic, intense, and interesting.  He invited us to come to the Challenger center to observe on Saturday.  Each team’s robot attempts the same tasks during a strict 150 seconds.  The team’s best of three scores is used to rank teams.  The robot surface is a 4ft. by 8 ft. table with a laminated game sheet that is a photograph of Mar’s surface provided by NASA.  This year, they were given 9 tasks to accomplish within 150 seconds using a robot of their design that is powered by a control “brick”(brains and power supply) that will only hold 5 programs, has 3 inputs, and 3 outputs.  Programming the “brick” is done in an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) where icons representing functions may be dragged and dropped to! create a graphical flowchart of how the program will work.  Judges visit with the teams to discuss their technical approach and again to discuss how their teams worked together to succeed.  The teams also make a presentation on one particular task they have chosen to research further. 

 

Ed has found that meeting with each school’s team once a week has worked well.  During his visits, he looks for progress by the teams.  Occasionally, relationships break down and team members get cranky.  He also arranges for replacement parts for things that break or disappear.  Block scheduling used by some schools can be a barrier for this type of project, because the teams need to remain in tact from the fall past January.  The state competition this year will be on Saturday, Dec. 6, and the national competition will be held in April in Texas.