Robotics Team Finishes Final Competition

By Faith Ajayi

McKinley placed 50 out of 60 in the Robotics Competition in Annapolis, Maryland in March. In January, national and international robotics teams were assigned a task of building a robot that could make counter-clockwise laps around a track while moving large trackballs over and/or under the overpass that bisects the track. The time given to accomplish this task was six weeks.

Team members have diverse reasons why they believe they did not perform up to their potential. "We spent too much time on the design. We were redoing the design several times and we ended up with several design flaws. Last year we stuck to a single design and it worked," said team captain, Ki-Aura Frazier.

Sixty schools from cities as far as Hawaii attended the competition. Three schools came from Great Britain. In addition, three DCPS schools attended, McKinley Technology High School, Roosevelt Senior High School, and Ballou Senior High School.

A controversial topic among team mentors and members was how much and at what level student and mentor involvement should be in building the robot. The competition is sponsored by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). The founder's original vision was for students to see engineers at work.

"It is great to build a robot. In some respects, anybody can build one, but our goal is to teach students how to be engineers. For that you need professional engineers guiding you and showing you the process of engineering," said Mr. Kenneth Lesley, the director of the robotics branch at McKinley. "One of the things we haven't done really well is getting the right balance. Are the mentors doing too much work or are they doing too little work?"

There is a broad spectrum of teams where the students do most of the work and teams where the adults do most of the work. "I want to find somewhere in the middle, where students do a lot but are working more closely with an engineer who can show them the proper way to do the task," said Lesley.

However, team members and mentors agree that the competition was not all about winning. "No, we did not do as well as we wanted to, but the FIRST Robotics Competition has never in itself been about winning," said Alexis Harris, 10th grader and second-year robotics team member. "It is about teamwork, networking with people from all over the world, learning about what it takes to be an engineer, and stepping up to the plate in an effort to broaden our horizons."

"The fact that we built the robot, it was functional, and it mostly did what we wanted it to do, that means we were competitive. We got in the race, we started the race, we stayed with it, and we finished to the end," said Lesley.

The team members learned from the other teams and already have plans to step up their game next year. Most of the original members of the robotics team are graduating this year but the rest of the team plans to do much better in next year's competition. "Next year we will be working extremely hard, stepping up to make our future alumni members proud, and continuing to embrace robotics with the same love and devotion we had since the very beginning," said Harris.

One of the plans to enhance the team's performance next year is to have a series of workshops to learn the functions of the drive train, pneumatics, electronics, and other important topics.

Another plan is to get a mascot and cheerleaders. "Next year we will be in the top 20 again and hopefully we will be well supported," said Frazier.

One of the major problems of the team is financial aid. The program costs $10,000 to $20,000 per year. The team plans to start fundraising as early as possible. "We're hoping to get grants from different corporate sponsors," said Lesley.

By Anna Kinsman |  May 2, 2008; 9:21 AM ET News
Previous: We Need a Recycling Program Now! | Next: New Uniform Design Planned for '08-'09

The comments to this entry are closed.