Members of the Vassar team pose with the coveted blue banner teams earn by being a District Event Winner — some teams have worked 10 years without one, the Vicious Vulcans of Vassar High (V2OVH) picked up a banner in their debut. Pictured left to right, front row: Brad Guile, Mason Morley; Row 2: Katelyn Gillies, Sierra Morley, Nathan Staple, Hans Bierlein, Cody Blakely; Row 3: Heidi Bierlein, Samantha Taylor, Chris Neuroth, Jared Dietzel, Tyler Piske; and back row: team mom Shelley Abel, coach Andy Tallman, CJ Bauer, Nathan Abel and coach Wayne Neuroth.
Photo courtesy of Shelley Abel
By Bill Petzold
Editor
FLINT — The robots, of course, are the stars of the show, but it’s the people behind the machines that make them go. This weekend you can meet both at the Vassar Theatre.
On Saturday, the Vassar High School robotics team was one of 41 high school teams from around the state competing in the FIRST Robotics District Competition at Flint’s Kettering University. Also in the mix were Kingston High School’s Robo-Cards and Caro High School’s Tiger Robotics, as well as teams from nearby Frankenmuth and North Branch.
Some teams at the competition, like Grand Blanc High School’s EngiNERDs, have been building robots and competing for eight years now. In fact, this is the 16th year for the FIRST Robotics Competition
Some teams, like Vassar’s V2OVH (Vicious Vulcans Of Vassar High), have a lot less time in the workshop.
“We got our number registered December 17. Everybody’s already registered in September and October, and basically it’s closed by the first of November,” said Wayne Neuroth, who coaches Vassar’s team along with Vassar teacher Andy Tallman.
“I started asking questions — for next year, was what I was planning — and all of a sudden I’m on the phone with the head of FIRST of Michigan and Andy was in on the call, and she said do you want to do it, yes or no?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ “ Neuroth said. “They gave us the registration fee right there, $6,000 for us to register. They said, ‘If you want to do it, I’ll give it to you right now.’
“We went to Kettering on January 3 to find out what this event was and pick up the chassis of what you see here and then find out what we had to do. And then we had basically from January 3 to February 17 to brainstorm, design, fabricate, build, program, test it and then it had to be sealed — there are strict regulations for this.”
This year’s theme game is Recycling Rush. Teams design robots to complete the relatively simple task of stacking gray storage totes on top of each other on raised scoring platforms, then placing a 50-gallon rubber garbage bin with a circular hole in the lid on top of that. Players also have foam pool noodles, referred to as litter in the game, which can be used to score points by placing them through the hole in the lid of the recycling bins or by tossing them onto certain areas of the playing surface. The playing area is 54 feet long by 27 feet wide and split in half by a low wall. On each side, three teams form an alliance, trying to collectively outscore the other side. Points are scored by placing stacked totes topped with bins if possible on the scoring zones. Teams have two minutes, thirty seconds to score as many points as they can. The first 15 seconds are an “autonomous” segment, when drivers stand away from the controls and the machine uses pre-programmed routines to (hopefully) score a couple quick points.
Teams can also help out their opponents and themselves by stacking yellow totes on the center wall. Four totes placed on the wall give each alliance 20 points, while four yellow totes in one stack on the center wall means 40 points for each team. These kind of points are called “coopertition” points.
Teams play a series of qualifying matches — there were 82 qualifying rounds on Friday, with each team taking part in 12 matches. The top 8 ranked teams then choose their alliances for the playoffs at the end of Day 1.
With the final pick of the alliance selection process, the Megatron Oracles of Flint selected V2OVH and the aforementioned EngiNERDs to serve as their allies for Day 2’s eight-alliance playoff, featuring semifinals, quarterfinals, and a best-2-of-3 final round. Vassar’s alliance stormed through the playoffs undefeated to claim one of three district trophy.
Kingston, in its second year of competition, finished qualifying seeded seventh, meaning it could select its own alliance for the playoffs. The Robo-Cards finished fifth overall, edging V2OVH by one point in the final point total.
Coach Matt Ferguson said his team learned quite a bit in its first year, and said his 22-member team has performed really well.
“Last year in our first year we went, and you have to have your robot inspected and I think we had 17 rule violations,” Ferguson said. “This year we only had one.”
The Robo-Cards earned an additional five points for being selected for the Creativity Award sponsored by Xerox.
“We won the Creativity Award for our unique gripper design,” Ferguson explained. “No other team had a gripper designed like ours.”
Caro placed 33rd at the competition, but coach Theron Nesbitt was pleased with his team’s efforts, saying that his focus is on how much his students learn. Nesbitt oversees the technology departments at both Vassar and Millington schools, and also is a member of the Caro Community Schools board of education. He coaches the Caro team with Rob Peters, science teacher at Caro High School.
“Robotics is a sport for the mind involving science, technology, engineering and math,” Nesbitt said. “The students learn teamwork, meet other students and build lasting friendships all while building life skills as well as job skills. I take a different approach to coaching. I am more of a mentor, and let the students take the lead. We don’t always perform the best, but the students learn much more.”
North Branch finished 12th in event standings, while Frankenmuth’s Steagles took16th, but earned the Innovation in Control Award sponsored by Rockwell Automation.
On Thursday, the Vassar team was working on swapping out planetary gears to make its gripper faster. They removed the gripper assembly after the competition and are allowed to work on it, but the rules prevent them from trying it out until a week before their next match April 2 through 4 at Bedford High School in Temperance.
“It’s sealed up,” Neuroth said of the team’s robot. “We can’t do anything with it. We can open it up for ‘show and tell,’ but our drivers cannot operate this, because you’re not allowed to practice. They’re really strict, but we’re following through with that. The week before the event we can open this up for a total of six hours and do whatever we want to do, then we seal it up again and when you go into the event, first they check the bagging, make sure it complies, open it up … then it goes to a weigh-in and an inspection. They cannot exceed $4,000 that you spend outside the chassis and it connate have any single part that costs more than $400.”
The FRC competition can be a costly proposition — one which Caro had time to offset by applying for an landing grants before the season.
“I helped write grants for our rookie year and actually received nearly $20,000,” Nesbitt said. “NASA gave us $6,000, Michigan Department of Education gave us $11,000 and the school kicked in $4,000. We are looking for sponsors to help fund the team next year as you can see how expensive it is, but so worth it.”
Kingston, the creativity winner, has taken a unique approach to team fundraising.
“Currently we’re ranked 34th in the state out of the 288 that are ranked,” Ferguson said. “We go to Troy in three weeks, if we do well enough we can go to states in Grand Rapids. We got equipment donated to make t-shirts, so we’ve been making and selling t-shirts. If you go to the website, there’s a link to the shirts and there’s a link to the graphics page.”
Visit team4994.weebly.com to learn more about the Kingston robotics team or to buy a shirt, or visit TuscolaToday.com for a link.
Hosting events complete with judges and the FRC approved playing surface isn’t cheap. The entry fee for the state competition is $4,000. Since it got a late start, Vassar’s coaches weren’t able to apply for any of the “rookie” grants. Fortunately, they’ve got friends in the community, especially Vassar Theatre owner Andreas Fuchs.
This Saturday and Sunday, the Theatre will host four fundraiser shows at 1:30 and 4 p.m. which will include demonstrations of the Vassar team’s robot, as well as screenings of the film Spare Parts. Spare Parts, which stars George Lopez and Jamie Lee Curtis, tells the story of an inexperienced robot-building team from a California High School that ends up doing battle with a team from MIT. Guests will be able to meet and greet team members, coaches and see the robot in action during one of FRC’s approved “show and tell” sessions.
Neuroth says more help is always welcomed, and the team is looking for someone in particular with knowledge of instrumentation and controls. Any parents or adults who have knowledge of a mechanical or electrical nature are welcome to help out. This interested in helping out may contact April Piske at 823-7722.
For more information on FRC competitions, visit usfirst.org or firstinmichigan.org.
For videos explaining how the competition works and footage of Vassar’s machine in action, visit tuscolatoday.com.
Bill Petzold is the editor of the Tuscola County Advertiser. He can be reached at petzold@tcadvertiser.com.