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Robotics Club Competes
By Spencer Green, Sports Editor
El Segundo High School’s Robotics Club has been very busy this year,
as they have been designing and building robots to compete against
other high school teams. Led by President Sam Green and
Vice-President Christian Elder, the team has worked for dozens of
hours this year to design and build their robots.
This fall, the team participated in the FVC (FIRST Vex
Challenge), a competition where small robots tried to score points
by moving softballs into goals. The El Segundo team did not make it
to the finals in this competition, but their robot worked well and
they were proud of what they had accomplished.
On January 6, the FIRST Robotics Competition, (FRC),
started. This competition was much larger than the FVC, which used
very small robots on a small, square-shaped field. The FRC is very
different, using robots four to six feet tall, on a field as large
as a tennis court. The El Segundo team competed in the FRC last year
and proved to be a tough competitor for a first-year team.
This year the El Segundo team built their second ever
FRC robot to compete in the game entitled ‘Rack ’N’ Roll.’ This game
involved two teams of three robots each, whose goal was to place
inner tubes on a large metal rack. The rack consisted of three
levels, and each level had eight arms extended outwards like a
spider. The object of the game was to pick up tubes and place them
on the rack, while gaining points based on where they placed the
tubes. After six long weeks of building, the ES team sent off their
robot, the Richard Dean Anderson, (RDA).
The six weeks of building and anticipation led up to the
competition at the Los Angeles Sports Arena from Thursday, March 7
through Saturday, March 9. The first day of the competition was just
practice, a chance for all of the teams there to fix and test out
their robots before the competition began. The El Segundo Team had
many obstacles to clear the first day, such as fixing the robot’s
arm and making sure everything worked. After a long first day, the
team packed up and went home for the night, only to return, bright
and early, the next day.
On Friday, the first day of matches, the RDA robot took
to the field with an aggressive start, attempting to score points
with the tubes and attempting to block other robots from scoring.
Although team RDA did not win all of its’ matches, they were able to
do a respectable job. Due to technical difficulties, many of the
teams in the competition were completely unable to get their robots
to work, and were only able to watch the competitions instead of
being involved in them. Saturday was the final day of competition,
with the last matches and final rounds. Once more, the RDA robot did
well, and even was able to score some points during its matches.
Secretary Kayla Nocket had this to say of the team: “We
did really well during the FRC challenge, and we did even better
during the VEX challenge.” Club member Austin Rondash felt
similarly, saying, “We did really well.”
The El Segundo team left the competition Saturday
afternoon with a 31st place title and a feeling of
accomplishment. After weeks of planning and building, a group of
students had built a working robot and competed against other high
school teams. Congratulations to the El Segundo High School Robotics
Club, and good luck in future competitions!
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