‘Robot athletes’ learn more than technical aptitude
“Like Meccano, with motors and brains” — that’s BCIT instructor Jason Brett describing the two robots competing on a field in front of him.
Built and programmed using VEX technology by teams of high school students, the robots are attempting to stack coloured cones and move goals over obstacles to score points. The team that accumulates the most points in two minutes will be declared the winner.
As one of the robots tries to pick up a cone, it becomes lodged between the machine’s wheels. The robot rocks back and forth, then topples over, giving the opposing team an easy victory.
The match was one of hundreds that took place Saturday at the B.C. Institute of Technology as 250 high school students from across B.C. competed in a tournament organized by the Pacific Youth Robotics Society.
Ten B.C. teams, including Jacob Walter and Theo Lemay, will be travelling to Kentucky for the VEX Robotics World Championships later this month.
“It’s fun,” Walters said about robotics. “I like programming it and seeing it work, and then tweaking it to make it better.”
Fellow Comox Valley students August McClellan and Sawyer McClellan also qualified for the championships. The teens are part of a distance education school that fielded 12 robotics teams this year, said coach Stew Savard.
When the school made its first robot about five years ago, it “drove around a chair and only two wheels fell off,” said Savard. “You learn from your mistakes.”
In early March, the two Comox teams earned enough points in the provincial tournament to qualify for the world championships. Saturday’s competition was a chance to work out any bugs.
Vihara Jayaweera and her team from Johnston Heights in Surrey are new to robotics competition.
“It’s a steep learning curve,” she said.
“But we had a good year.”
When Brett began organizing the BCIT tournament several years ago, he thought it would teach students technical skills, such as programming and engineering.
“But the more I do it, the more I realize it’s the soft skills that are so valuable,” he said. “The teamwork, dealing with stress, communicating your design to the judges — these are very practical, real-world skills that they’re learning.”
Many of the “robot athletes” are from large schools where it’s difficult to make a sports team unless you’re an elite player. “Here, they’re being cheered for doing something smart,” said Brett.
Many of the students will go on to university and careers in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), while others will use the lessons learned to follow another path. In August, VEX will announce next year’s “game,” and the students will need to rebuild and reprogram their machines to compete in a completely different competition.