After claiming the grand prize in the last year’s Incredible Bionic Man Challenge, members of the Island Trees High School robotic team No. 545, Robodawgs, have been hard at work preparing for the regional robotics competition at Hofstra University. This past weekend, the Robodawgs competed against both local and national teams in the “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”—or FIRST—regional robotics competition, placing 27 out of 50 teams.
The hard-working troop worked together with their technology teachers Mr. Norton and Dr. Andrew Sass to complete their robot within the six week timeframe provided, and brainstormed the best possible robot to build within the time alotted.
The game that the teams played was called Aerial Assist. The game is played by two competing alliances of three robots each on a flat 25’ x 54’ foot field. The objective was to score as many goals as possible during a match of about two minutes. The more an alliance gets the ball in their goals, and the more they work together to do it, the more points their alliance receives.
The Robodawgs scored the second highest, earning 501 points in 11 rounds. Working together was a key role of competing in the regional game. Not only did the students earn points for working together, they showed fellowship with members of other teams. If any student needed a mechanical part, they would announce it over the speakers, and members from other teams would give their spare part to them.
Each student put effort into the large project, and the team agreed that’s what made making a robot from scratch fun and worth the labor.
“Putting our robot together was quite difficult, but it was still fun, and we all feel accomplished from the work we did. It was definitely a new exciting experience for me and my team members,” said Jay Shah, a member of the Island Trees Robodawgs.
