Team 476 Robotics

A LOOK INTO THE FRAMEWORK OF THE PONCA CITY HIGH SCHOOL ROBOTICS TEAM

Story and Photos by Laina Smith/Staff Writer

Ponca City High School created its first robotics team in Nov. of 1999. Tanya Scott previously ran the program. Scott and a group of engineers from ConocoPhillips refinery volunteered time to the club. Conoco sponsored the team and still does to this day. In 2018, Ponca City High School’s physical science teacher Derek Taylor took over the club’s leadership.

“I’ve always kind of been fascinated with physics,” Taylor said. “That’s my subject. That’s what I teach. So whenever they said they had an opening, Mr. Dilbeck, the high school principal at that time, walked me around and kind of explained a little bit about the program and I said, ‘Yeah, sure, I’d be happy to take it over.’”

“In the beginning, they provided a workshop space,” Taylor said. “A massive workshop space on the plant and the students would meet there … They got together with the engineers from Conoco, and they competed in something called ‘FIRST Robotics.’ We have some of their legacy equipment still around. They were wildly successful. They built 150 lb. industrial-size robots. They were massive things using vertical mills to cut their own screw holes. They machined a lot of the parts themselves because they had engineering help. It’s pretty amazing to see some of the stuff that was left behind that they hadn’t cannibalized yet for future robots.”

The Ponca City High School robotics club is composed of Po-Hi students who compete each year in multiple competitions leading up to the world championship. The team has many roles where students can showcase their knowledge and problem-solving skills.

“These students build robots to compete in a variety of competitions throughout the year,” Taylor said. “They compete with students from Oklahoma, Texas, all over the world really if they qualify for the world championships. It’s held once a year in April.”

Over the years, robotics has evolved into what it is now. As a result, there are fewer engineers involved in the club. It also means the team uses new software, and coding looks different. “One of the things that we’ve migrated into doing is … It’s not really an erector set, but you can kind of see where people would think that way,” Taylor said. “They have to custom design the robots. They have to code them in a new software. They can be autonomous or manually controlled, and they’re smaller scale, so they’re easier to box up and carry with us to competitions.”

Thanks to Phillips 66, formerly ConocoPhillips, the robotics team received new components for their robots a few years ago.

Students learn and use many different jobs to create a robot from scratch in the robotics club.

“We have programmers,” Taylor said. “Chase is our main programmer. He’s really taken ownership of that. Then we break out into builders and designers. Everyone has a say in the design. They break apart and look at a CAD drawing and build from that CAD file. They are becoming proficient in being able to use CAD software and being able to work with hand tools and build something from scratch that they designed.” When making a robot come to life, there is a process the team has to follow to accomplish their goal. The students follow that process step by step while incorporating skills learned to create a robot ready for competition.

“At the beginning of each season, VEX, that is the company that oversees the robotics world at this scale, and every April right after worlds they debut the next season’s challenge or game, as it’s referred to,” Taylor said. “You have the summer to be thinking and looking over how best to manipulate a robot to score points. When we meet back in August, we watch the game reveal to refresh that, and we spend the first couple meetings designing. So the first thing that has to happen is we have to have a design, so we’re not just down here cutting metal randomly.”

Once opposition research and designing are complete, the design is added to the design software. Once the robot’s design is complete, the team then brings that to the workshop and builds the robot.

“It takes months of hard work to get the robot actually built,” Taylor said. “Once we have all

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ROBOT continued from page 67

the parts in place, then it gets coded. Right now, we have several practice bots so that we can learn the code. We have a game manual that has where all the pieces would be in the arena. They’re set up in very specific locations and it tells you where they would be. You can set it up so you can practice your autonomous code.”

Once the robot is built, coded, and tested, the team takes it to competition. Of course, competitions come with nerves, but for the most part, the group focuses on creating partnerships to win hopefully.

“Somebody has to drive the robot and go score the points,” Taylor said. “When we are at competition, you have other team members that will be doing opposition research. Other team members that will be trying to forge alliances with other teams because it is played with an alliance partner. You want to know what those other robots can do so that you can team up with somebody that’s actually going to give you a chance to win. It is a team game up until a point, and after you get through so many rounds, then it becomes more of an individual one-on-one type basis.”

Robotics competitions are what is known as tournament style. Multiple high schools throughout the state of Oklahoma meet at a high school.

“In several different competitions, multiple of the same teams travel to several different competitions around the state. Stillwater has competitions at Stillwater High School. We can travel to Derby. Derby has competitions. Oklahoma City has competitions. There are several around the area. It’s up to the school whether they want to host the competition.” Like other clubs and sports, State comes at the end of the season for robotics. The state competition requires a qualification to compete. Throughout the year, the team’s performance at other competitions and state then determines which teams will compete at the world competition.

Team 476 has won several awards at competitions throughout the years. In 2015, the girls’ team took first at a VEX competition in Plano, Texas.

“In the past, we have won the 2007 Lone Star regional in Texas,” Taylor said. “That was in first robotics. I can almost show you better than I can tell you. The list of accolades is huge.”

As well as awards, students involved in robotics can apply and win scholarships through VEX and First robotics. They can also letter in robotics through high school if they are with the team for two years.

The knowledge learned during their time with the robotics team is something students at POHI will be able to take with them to college and even the workforce throughout their lives.

“It’s a STEM program,” Taylor said. “It creates problem-solving … You are physically creating the design that you imagined. I think that in any workplace, that’s something that you will be doing a lot, problem-solving. It doesn’t matter if a lift motor goes out on a pipeline. You’ve got to figure out what’s happening, so you have to diagnose that. That’s what we do.”

For the students, the robotics team is a way to create new relationships and learn new skills in a group setting.

“We just have a goal that we work toward,” Mayer, one of the student builders said. “It feels nice to progress along that.”

Not only does the robotics team benefit the students, but also the school as a whole.

“I think it gives us an avenue to build on,” Taylor said. “It’s a solid foundation that we can draw experience from as we craft the new STEM program.”

A Po-Hi robotics member is looking at the CAD file for the team’s robot

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