C-S students work on the project for their first robotics competition coming up in March.
By Bruce Rolfe
A group of Climax-Scotts Jr./Sr. High School students are putting the academic skills they have learned in the classroom into action in an after school robotics club they hope will bring notoriety for the group and school district at a competition they are preparing to compete in March 6 and 7 in Battle Creek.
The after school club, under the guidance of Chad Schau with assistance coming from Adam Audette, is the FIRST® Robotics Competition group.
FIRST is the world’s leading youth robotics community, delivering youth robotics competitions that inspire innovation, build confidence, and prepare young people for life. FIRST Robotics Competition is an international organization that has high school aged kids build and compete in an objective based competition.
Because of C-S’ smaller enrollment, the group was given permission to include junior high students.
The after school robotics club Schau and Audette oversee includes C-S students in grades 6 through 11.
There is also a separate Junior High robotics class at C-S taught by Patty Pobuda.
FIRST is the world’s leading youth robotics community, delivering youth robotics competitions that inspire innovation, build confidence, and prepare young people for life. FIRST Robotics Competition is an international organization that has high school aged kids build and compete in an objective based competition.
Because of C-S’ smaller enrollment, the group was given permission to include junior high students.
The after school robotics club Schau and Audette oversee includes C-S students in grades 6 through 11.
There is also a separate Junior High robotics class at C-S taught by Patty Pobuda.
Climax-Scotts Students in an after school robotics club are pictured with the robot the group built.
In 360-degree learning guided by adult mentors, each FIRST Robotics Competition team creates a team identity, raises funds to meet its goals, and advances appreciation for STEM in its community.
The after school group meets each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the intermediate building from 2:45 to 5 p.m. in a dedicated robotics room.
Schau said he’s very pleased with the interest in the after school program.
“I am ecstatic with the interest. I was worried that I would get two or three kids. I have an enormous amount of interest. There’s more kids that want to be involved, but with other extra curricular activities, with other sports that are going on at the same time, it was not feasible for them. But I’m sure over the next couple of years we might be able to figure out a way to accommodate more of the other programs,” adds Schau.
Schau was previously a mechanical engineer for 10 years before he accepted the maintenance supervisor position at C-S after Scott Simmons retired last August. He said part of his ambition after he started his new job at C-S was to start an after school robotics program at C-S.
“I was with an engineering group in Otsego for seven years and I was given the opportunity to coach and mentor Otsego’s High School team while I was there and that gave me all the different things I have as far as getting this program going here. I’ve had a lot of help and support from my previous team and some other local area teams. The Gull Lake head coach reached out to me a couple of days ago and invited us all over there to go practice on their full-size practice field. And they’ve also offered any kind of help and assistance we may need to get ours (robot) competition ready,” said Schau.
The C-S group is in its sixth week developing and planning.
The event kicked off January 10 when the kit bot for the robot the C-S group built, was released. Students designed, programmed, and built the industrial-sized robot.
The C-S after school robotics team will compete in its first district competition at Battle Creek Lakeview High School March 6 and 7. Admission is free.
The group will also compete in a second district competition at Columbia Central High School in Brooklyn, Michigan March 21 and 22.
The group will be competing to qualify for the State Level. If the local robotics team qualifies for the State Level, that event will be held at Grand Valley State University against other qualifying teams for an opportunity to qualify for the World Event held in Houston, Texas.
After weeks of planning, mechanical building, electrical wiring, and programming, the robot has been built by the C-S students.
Audette and students constructed a hopper that resembles a hopper that will be a part of the competition at Lakeview High School.
The team had its first opportunity to practice driving the robot and launching balls into the hopper February 18.
The group built other apparatus’ on the robot to perform additional tasks, which can give the team a higher score at the district competition and increase its chance to advance to the state level.
The local group will construct pull up bars along with the hopper and program the robot to pull up onto bars on the tower.
At the Lakeview District competition and later Columbia Central High School, the C-S robotics team will be teamed up with two other robots as part of a three-team alliance competing against three other robots on another three-team alliance from other schools.
The objective is to have the robot deposit as many balls (called fuel) into a hopper (called a hub) as possible to score points, climb pull up bars and perform other tasks in a set amount of time to secure more points.
The team can also secure points by having members successfully throw fuel into the hub.
One part of the competition is auto. The team has written code using java script, making the robots autonomous. The coding the group wrote instructs the robot to perform different maneuvers that score points. Once the team hits go, the robot does the rest of the work and hopefully completes each task to secure more points.
The after school group meets each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the intermediate building from 2:45 to 5 p.m. in a dedicated robotics room.
Schau said he’s very pleased with the interest in the after school program.
“I am ecstatic with the interest. I was worried that I would get two or three kids. I have an enormous amount of interest. There’s more kids that want to be involved, but with other extra curricular activities, with other sports that are going on at the same time, it was not feasible for them. But I’m sure over the next couple of years we might be able to figure out a way to accommodate more of the other programs,” adds Schau.
Schau was previously a mechanical engineer for 10 years before he accepted the maintenance supervisor position at C-S after Scott Simmons retired last August. He said part of his ambition after he started his new job at C-S was to start an after school robotics program at C-S.
“I was with an engineering group in Otsego for seven years and I was given the opportunity to coach and mentor Otsego’s High School team while I was there and that gave me all the different things I have as far as getting this program going here. I’ve had a lot of help and support from my previous team and some other local area teams. The Gull Lake head coach reached out to me a couple of days ago and invited us all over there to go practice on their full-size practice field. And they’ve also offered any kind of help and assistance we may need to get ours (robot) competition ready,” said Schau.
The C-S group is in its sixth week developing and planning.
The event kicked off January 10 when the kit bot for the robot the C-S group built, was released. Students designed, programmed, and built the industrial-sized robot.
The C-S after school robotics team will compete in its first district competition at Battle Creek Lakeview High School March 6 and 7. Admission is free.
The group will also compete in a second district competition at Columbia Central High School in Brooklyn, Michigan March 21 and 22.
The group will be competing to qualify for the State Level. If the local robotics team qualifies for the State Level, that event will be held at Grand Valley State University against other qualifying teams for an opportunity to qualify for the World Event held in Houston, Texas.
After weeks of planning, mechanical building, electrical wiring, and programming, the robot has been built by the C-S students.
Audette and students constructed a hopper that resembles a hopper that will be a part of the competition at Lakeview High School.
The team had its first opportunity to practice driving the robot and launching balls into the hopper February 18.
The group built other apparatus’ on the robot to perform additional tasks, which can give the team a higher score at the district competition and increase its chance to advance to the state level.
The local group will construct pull up bars along with the hopper and program the robot to pull up onto bars on the tower.
At the Lakeview District competition and later Columbia Central High School, the C-S robotics team will be teamed up with two other robots as part of a three-team alliance competing against three other robots on another three-team alliance from other schools.
The objective is to have the robot deposit as many balls (called fuel) into a hopper (called a hub) as possible to score points, climb pull up bars and perform other tasks in a set amount of time to secure more points.
The team can also secure points by having members successfully throw fuel into the hub.
One part of the competition is auto. The team has written code using java script, making the robots autonomous. The coding the group wrote instructs the robot to perform different maneuvers that score points. Once the team hits go, the robot does the rest of the work and hopefully completes each task to secure more points.
Another segment of the competition is the Teleop period where drivers control their robots.
Teleop is split into six segments - transition shift, four alliance shifts and the end game. During each shift the hubs are either active or inactive. Each fuel scored in an active hub is worth one point.
To start Teleop both hubs are active for a 10 second transition shift.
The Alliance that scores the most fuel in Auto will have their hub inactive for the 25 second duration of Alliance Shift one. The opposing Alliance Hub will be active during this time.
For the next shift the hub status will shift and the hub that was inactive will become active. The hubs will continue to alternate for Alliance shifts 3 and 4 as teams continue to collect fuel and score in its hub while its active.
The final part is the end game where both hubs are active for the final 30 seconds of the match.
Teams that score enough fuel in their hub to meet the energized threshold will earn a ranking point. Teams that score enough fuel in their hub to meet the supercharged threshold will earn an additional ranking point.
Teams then return to climb their tower. A robot that can climb to level 1 will earn 10 points. A robot that can climb to level 2 will earn 20 points and a robot that can climb to level 3 will earn 30 points.
An Alliance that can earn enough tower points from robots climbing in either auto or teleop will earn a traversal ranking point. The Alliance that earns the most points overall wins the match.
C-S students in the robotics after school club say they have enjoyed both the robot building process along with the code writing part of the operation that makes the robot perform tasks.
“I like building and learning new things. Building the robot and testing it out. It’s just been really fun,” said Zoie Pankey, a 7th grader at C-S.
While he didn’t like the coding segment, Jason Jenkins said he did enjoy the designing and building aspect.
“I think it’s pretty awesome. It’s kind of nice to see things that our whole team has worked so hard on finally being able to be put to use,” said Jenkins, a sixth grader at the C-S Jr. High.
Schau said since Aiden Klusman, a junior, is the oldest student in the after school program, he is the current robot operator.
There’s a camera on the robot that will scan a QR code the students wrote that launches the robot into automatic code.
“We have to code an automatic mode so the robot automatically drives itself. It takes this camera (on the robot) to scan those codes and directs the robot to go to those places,” explained Klusman, who helped assemble the robot but did not write code.
There’s a video feed on the camera that allows the team to view the robot’s maneuvers on a laptop computer.
Schau said he hopes the after school robotics program inspires other students to join the group in the future.
“This is our rookie year. A difficult year for a lot of teams but I think we’re definitely ahead of the curve as far as the amount of kids we have involved, the amount of talent involved and my previous experience all collaborating into one cohesive group,” said Schau.
Schau said the group is self-funded. He said there are also programs that help first year programs get established, along with several grants available that helps pay for events in the first year.
Sponsorships and donors in the community and fundraising opportunities have helped pay for the robot kits.
Schau said the experience the students are enjoying now may inspire them to go into a robotics related career.
“There’s a lot of junior high kids in this program and I’m excited for that for many reasons. One being, think about these 6th graders are going to potentially be in a program for seven years. The amount that they’re going to learn and absorb and take. Just to see what they are in their sixth grade year versus their senior year. See how much they’ve improved and how advanced they’re going to be. And then this. These abilities they get here is stuff that they can take past high school. Football’s great, baseball’s great, basketball’s great. But the skills they learn here, they’re going to be able to use in careers that they do after school,” points out Schau, who said Michigan has the largest density for FIRST Robotics in the world.
After school robotics club leaders Chad Schau (right) and Adam Audette (second from right) are pictured with students around the robot the club built.
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