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Up to the challenge

Robotics teams take center stage in Houghton

By Garrett Neese 4 min read

HOUGHTON -- Five middle-school robotics teams earned a trip to a state championship at a competition Saturday at Houghton Middle School.

Thirteen teams from the Upper Peninsula and downstate competed in Saturday's tournament, part of the U.P. FIRST Tech Challenge Qualifier. This was the first time Houghton has been able to hold one in five years, said event coordinator Melody Doig.

"I'm going to do whatever I can to grow the program, and hosting events is one way to grow the program," she said.

In the best-of-three finals, the alliance of the BetaWolves from Carney and the Silver Hornets from Troy came away with a 145-110 victory in the third match of the best-of-three finals over the rival alliance of Twisted Devils Green from Gull Lake and Tech BraveBots from Gladstone.

Those four, along with Houghton's Snowbots Blue, advanced to the Northwest State Championship in Howell.

"It was very good," said Max Jenkins, a seventh-grader with the BetaWolves. "It was more of a team effort. And we couldn't do it without our mentors. They taught us actually everything we know."

The FIRST Tech Challenge introduces a new game with new tasks each year, which teams then go to work building a robot to accomplish.

This year's game, CenterStage, displays how the arts and science affect each other, Doig said.

The game field represents a stage. Robots pick up pixels -- hexagonal game pieces -- and place them in areas corresponding to backstage and the backdrop. Lighting trusses in the middle of the field provide obstacles to work around.

"Teams were challenged initially because it was on an angle, so they were not only reaching up, but reaching out," Doig said. "Usually it's one or the other. This combination is a little harder engineering problem."

The games each have three stages: An autonomous period where teams program the robot's actions ahead of time, a driver-controlled segment, and a 30-second endgame. In that stage, robots must maneuver to a specific spot on the floor to launch a drone (a paper airplane), earning the most points by landing in the zone closest to the field. Teams also earn points by finishing the game with a robot parked in backstage, and having one suspended from the rigging.

The seven-member BetaWolves team got started building within the first week, enabling it to start sooner on programming, Jenkins said.

The team had to overcome the usual stumbling blocks of engineering projects along the way, but bounced back every time, Jenkins said.

"Let's just say we Wolves are stubborn," he said.

For a robotics team, the biggest obstacle was the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Carney to Houghton.

"On a bumpy road, it could damage the robot, and anything could happen," Jenkins said.

The five teams now start preparing for the state championships in Howell, which take place Dec. 15-17.

The BetaWolves will spend the time making improvements. They'll tweak the code to make it more accurate, Jenkins said. They'll also address problems that cropped up during competition, like a motor that failed.

"We're also going to add a drone-launching system," he said. "We didn't get a chance to do that because we didn't know what to do."

The tournament had gone "very well," Doig said. The qualifying tournament will be back in Houghton next year.

"We're a little rusty around the edges for not hosting for a while, but we're getting back up to speed," she said. "We had no major snafus, no protests. Everybody's happy."

At the closing ceremony, awards went to the top finishers, as well as teams recognized for qualities such as design, creative thinking and embodying the culture of FIRST.

In a speech to the crowd, Doig encouraged the teams to do what they could to spread interest in FIRST.

"All the small towns up here have parades in the summer ... be in the parade," she said. "Find other activities in your town you can join to do demonstrations of your robot. It'll pay off."

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