Eddie Canales
After a season spent designing, building and programming a robot from scratch, Dublin City Schools' Bad Robots returned from Houston with one of the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship's most distinctive honors: the Judge's Award.
The award recognizes teams whose achievements stand out in unique ways, both on and off the field. For the more than 20 students who make up the Dublin Robotics program, it was a recognition of not only their engineering skills, but also their teamwork, outreach efforts and commitment to inspiring future competitors.
This year, the team was represented by rising high school seniors Rei Albertson, Mary Piper Blaney, Mara O’Sullivan, Rachael Park and Samuel Wehnke. Since the Dublin Robotics program’s founding in 2002, it has been directed by instructor Greg King.
The building process
Nathan Sears
The Dublin Robotics program team has varying levels of experience in the field, but they all share a passion for technology, engineering and problem solving.
“This is my first year in robotics. But, kind of my entire life, I’ve been more into space and rockets and everything,” says O’Sullivan.
As O’Sullivan moved through high school, she set her eyes on engineering for college. She joined the program to experiment and find out if it was for her.
“I think that was a really good decision because I found I’ve learned so much in my first year here,” O’Sullivan continues. “And it’s going to translate so well to what we’re doing in college.”
Other students transitioned from middle school robotics programs to the Dublin Robotics program in high school. Wehnke, for example, started participating in FIRST programs when he was in the seventh grade.
“I’ve always been into messing around with electronics, playing with motors and just making things in general,” Wehnke says.
In preparation for robotics competitions such as the Buckeye Regional, Miami Valley Regional and the FIRST Robotics Competition, the students in the program visited the shop every week to discuss, design and prototype a semi-autonomous robot together. As the weeks progressed, the team grew close and used one another as sources of motivation for their goals.
Skills to succeed
Nathan Sears
After leaving the Miami Valley Competition on April 4 and knowing FIRST was on April 29, the team went to work. They emailed companies a video explaining why they should go to FIRST and received $25,000 in donations and sponsorships from American Electric Power, Honda, Denso and more.
In that time, the team had also nearly reconstructed their entire robot, transforming key components such as its internal wiring and gathering system – all heavily reliant on hand tools as the team had limited access to advanced alternatives.
When the team finally arrived in Houston for FIRST, they were greeted by teams from around the world. Over the course of 10 matches, they were randomly sorted into three-team alliances. In each alliance, winning meant all three teams had to work together for a group score higher than the opposition.
“Because you keep switching up, you have to go talk to the teams (and) merit a lot of strategies,” says Park, a first-year with Bad Robots. “How does your robot work? How does ours work? How can they work together?”
Scoring points aside, the Bad Robots’ performance depended heavily on their ability to coordinate with each other. Repairs had to be made quickly in-between matches, such as tying down a wire or even helping another team.
It wasn’t all building robots and split-second decisions, however.
Park developed her photography skills by taking pictures on the field, and Blaney put her public-speaking skills to the test during pit-judging for her second year at FIRST.
Pit-judging is a two-day process where a judging panel conducts spontaneous interviews with teams at their pits. The judging panel asks questions on topics ranging from their build process and robot to their outreach and team’s impact.
Blaney recalls that she was nervous about pit-judging her first year. This year, judges were very impressed. Their outstanding impression won them the elusive Judge’s Award, a unique recognition of a team’s effort and growth.
Looking to the future
Nathan Sears
Although the international robotics competition is over and the students are back in Dublin, the group says they aren’t finished.
In July, the Dublin Robotics team ran a week-long robotics summer camp for 10-plus elementary and middle school teams. The camp aimed to educate and prepare students to compete at robotics tournaments with their own team-made robots.
The bonded group of seniors talk of going to the same colleges for similar engineering fields, from electrical to nuclear engineering at colleges such as The Ohio State University, Purdue University and Virginia Tech.
But before setting off for college, Dublin’s Bad Robots have their eyes set on the FIRST Robotics Competition in 2027.
“We really want to go to worlds again next year,” says O’Sullivan. “We’re going to take all of our experiences from this year that got us there, use them, build upon them, and then work through that next season to try and get us there again.”
Grey Romohr is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
