The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Students battle with automated robots
Andrews Osborne Academy hosts the second annual CCIS Robotics Throwdown
Students from Andrews Osborne Academy, Laurel, Ruffing, Ratner, Gilmour and Hawkings gathered in the gymnasium at Andrews Osborne Academy to compete against each other in the second annual Robot Throw Down.
Approximately 130 fourth-through-ninth-graders divided into teams designed and built automated robots using the LEGO EV3 kits prior to battling against each other with them.
Andrews Osborne Academy hosted the event for Cleveland Council of Independent Schools.
“This event represents real world engineering challenges by using the LEGO EV3 kits to build robots according to specific design guidelines,” according to a media release from Andrews Osborne Academy.
The object of the four minute long battle was to either flip, disable or to force out of bounds your opponents. The matches consisted of four teams each entering one robot.
The students could not have anything built prior to arriving at the event and are subjected to a constraint giving to them 20 minutes into designing. The design constraint giving to the students was the robot when built had to have a base no smaller than 26 cm., so if students come in with a plan they may have to alter it, stated Kaleigh Lariche, science teacher at Andrews Osborne Academy.
Students than have to get
the robot connected through a blue tooth device such as cellular phone or and iPad and control the movements of it through a downloaded app.
The event was open to any student in the eligible grades who is enrolled in a CCIS school and has an interest in Robotics, according to event coordinator Adam Altman.
Most of the entrants are students who are in a robotics club, robotics class or science class.
There is no parental help in building the robots, stated Mike LeVan, parent of a student participant. “They are 100 percent built by the kids,” Levan stated.
Anna Hadzinski, 13, thinks the competition is a good way to get schools together to do something fun.
“This is really fun,” said Luke Frisbrie, 11, who is competing for a second time.
Luke is part of Team Operation Mayhem and stated he was proud to this team.
Abe Szabo, 12, and his team Electric Trash, decided to pretty much wing it in the design phase.
“We tried to make a good base to make it sturdy,” he said. “It was challenging finding a good way to connect the brick to the base.”
Emmy Vitovick, 9, said we have to make sure we win, it’s very challenging.”
The winners of the competition receive a 3-D printed trophy of a robot head with the wording Robot Throw down on it.
“We are trying to create in event all about engineering, and the kids doing their own engineering,” Altman said. “This is a fun event where kids are motivated to do their own engineering.”