Piedmont’s robotics team, Scotbotics, won third place in their last qualifying competition at Oakridge High School, and will advance to the NorCal Regional Championships of the First Tech Challenge (FTC), a worldwide robotics competition.
Scotbotics was started in 2009 by PHS alumni Morgan Tenney, Forest Yeh, June Park, Renee Lowe, and Brian Yang. Since then, the number of robotics teams nation-wide has grown tremendously.
“Our robots, in essence, play a game, which changes every year,” senior Chris Rogers said. “We built our robot specifically for this game, called ‘Ring it Up’.”
In “Ring it Up”, the Scotbotics had to make their robot, Fluffy, place plastic rings over pegs of varying heights. There was a 30 second autonomous period and a two-minute driver-controlled period. Additional points were added for teams who were able to elevate their robot off the ground before time was up.
“We have a robot that is good at both picking and placing rings and at picking up our partner’s robot, and it is strong and reliable,” mentor John Tenney said. “So we have a good offense, and it is also tough to play defense against us by keeping us away from scoring.”
In order to build the robot, the team had to implement design, engineering, electronic components, and software programming, requiring them to think outside of the box. They were given a kit, which included standard robotic parts, and had to build it so that it was small enough to fit inside an 18-inch cube. They used SolidWorks before building the robot to aid with early prototyping and testing.
“Joining Scotbotics was really a way for me to put the skills I learned playing with LEGOs and programming in a practical and fun way,” PHS alumnus Brian Yang said.
At the competitions, alliances are formed between two schools, so that teams can help each other out in the arena. Scotbotics teamed up with the robotics team from Woodland Christian High School, the Nerd Herd.
Leading up to the Oakridge High School competition, which was on Jan. 6, the team competed in a competition at Sequoia High School on Nov. 10 and at Intel Corporation’s campus on Dec. 10.
“We won the two rounds of the semifinals with our alliance partner, the Nerd Herd and went against the two top teams in the finals. We lost both rounds, but not without putting up a good fight,” Rogers said. “We received the Inspire Award for our performance during the day, winning all our matches but one in qualifying rounds and the two in the finals.”
In order to receive the Inspire Award, a team must demonstrate professionalism when interacting with team members as well as other teams, have an impressive Engineering Notebook, and have a consistent performance throughout the event, according to the FTC website usfirst.org.
Because Scotbotics is so competitive, it allows the teammates to work cooperatively and gain leadership skills.
“Since I joined the team, I’ve undoubtedly learned a lot not just about building and programming robots, but working together with others and gaining some leadership roles that I think are truly invaluable for the real world,” Yang said.
The team members also enjoy being a part of Scotbotics.
“I do Scotbotics because it’s fun for me,” Rogers said. “It gives me a challenge to help design and construct the ideal robot to play the game, which always has many aspects and ways to score.”
Tenney also enjoys being the mentor for Scotbotics, he said.
“It has been eye-opening to see how every member has found a way to contribute,” Tenney said. “So the team has made me more open to the possibilities of each individual.”
