Some Like it ’Bot

Long-tenured robotics program teaches Grandview students valuable skills

FOr THe 16TH TiMe, students at Grandview Heights High School have spent their winter building a better ’bot.

The school’s FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics team – known officially as FIRST Robotics Team 128, and colloquially as the Botcats – was born in the 1996-97 school year, making it the oldest high school robotics program in central Ohio.

This year’s team has a total of 28 students. Its workers must be tireless. National FIRST Robotics Competition officials in January announce the task the robots must complete. Once the announcement is made, team members meet every night during the school week and all day on weekends, holidays and snow days to get their robot ready for competition. They have six weeks to design, build and program, and sometimes they work for 40 hours or more per week.

Students are involved in every step of building the robot. They figure out how a robot can complete the given task and build mock-ups. They narrow down multiple suggested designs to the best one available. They do all the construction. They pre-program every action the robot takes. They even have to find their own parts.

“We’re pretty much a nickel-and-dime operation,” says team coordinator Sue Godez. Godez, a former Grandview high school physics teacher now living in southeast Ohio, has been advising the team since its inception. Adult mentors provide support, but the students are the driving force – learning about computer programming, motors, physics and other technological aspects, all skills that may benefit them later in life.

“It kind of introduces you to math, sciences and technology,” says junior Andy McCauley.

“I know how to program in C, which is a really common (computer) language,” says Chase Douglass, a junior who has been part of the district’s robotics program for seven years.

The students also learn more general skills like team-building, time management and compromise. They even need to learn about budgeting, as each team must submit a bill of needed materials and then order them.

“As far as I’m concerned, FIRST provides a better educational value than any other extracurricular activity in any school district,” Godez says.

This year’s goal: program a robot to cross a field, pick up balls and shoot them into hoops at three different levels, then balance sets of teetering bridges, all in the span of two minutes. The team competes against other teams to complete its tasks, then has 10 minutes for the “pit crew” to make adjustments and repairs before being thrown into another matchup.

Last year, the team was tasked with picking up tubes and extracting balls from them. The Botcats’ ’bot used a pin to come down and clamp the tube, a pneumatic to lift it and a winch and pulley system to remove the balls.

Thanks to the school district’s credit flexibility program, Botcats team members can now receive science class credit for being part of the team, earning a full credit and letter grade for their participation.

And high school is not the only level at which enterprising Grandview students can create their own robots. The district has 10 FIRST Lego League teams in its elementary and middle schools, with a total of almost 70 members, helping prepare students for the big leagues when they get into high school.

All told, more than 16 percent of Grandview’s student population is involved in a robotics program.

The program provides the students a preview of what they may face in college if they continue to pursue science and engineering, a valuable opportunity.

“It’s definitely given me an edge on the things to come in my college career,” says senior Gen Ritz.

The team has seen numerous members go on to use the skills they’ve learned in robotics to further their careers, Godez says, and is sometimes fortunate enough to have alumni come back as team mentors.

“We have a lot of kids who’ve become engineers,” she says. “We have medical doctors, we have attorneys.”

This year, the Botcats will head to the regional competition in Pittsburgh from March 8-10. The national championships, where the team may square off against 600 others, are March 26-28 in St. Louis.

The Botcats have enjoyed great success over the lengthy existence of their program, making it to the finals of FIRST’s National Division in 2001 and taking top honors in the Pittsburgh Regional Division in 2006.

Garth Bishop is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at laurand@pubgroupltd.com.