Two Westby students qualify for world robotics competition in Texas | News

Nathan McKittrick, WAMS English language arts instructor and robotics membership adviser, stated this college yr 11 students joined the membership, whose workforce identify is Norse Force. There was sufficient tools to run 4 groups.

“Each team is then identified by a number/letter,” McKittrick stated. “Norse Force 54667C, for example, is the team that qualified for the World Championship.”

Members of Norse Force 54667C are Kayden Kast and Alden Christenson.

Club members Jacob Michaels, Ronan Radke, Aliyah McCauley and Tessa Rumppe competed as a workforce on the regional stage. The workforce of Addison Evenstad and Cecelia Lyons certified and competed on the state stage. The workforce of Aurora Gricius, Asa Jepsen and Sawyer Lindahl additionally certified and competed on the state stage.

McKittrick, who’s in his first yr as adviser, stated all the groups competed in The Greater Western Wisconsin Vex IQ Challenge, which was hosted by Whitehall.

“During that regional competition, three of four teams qualified and earned spot in the Wisconsin State Championships which was held at the Fox Cities Exhibition Center in Appleton on March 12-13,” McKittrick stated. “For that day, Alden and Kayden had reconstructed their previously successful robot in hopes to secure higher point totals at state.”

He stated the robotic struggled with the modification and the primary two rounds have been disappointing for the boys.

“Seeing the defeat in their eyes, I reminded them that in the end, the lowest two scores for the day would be dropped before their average was calculated. Alden lit up with hope, ran back to the pit area, tore the robot apart, rebuilt it and re-coded it between rounds. They went on that day to fight their way back and ultimately qualify for the World Championship in Texas.”

This yr, the VEX IQ sport set problem consisted of twenty-two three-inch balls across the 6 foot x 8 foot subject and a cage in the center with a basket on high of it. The robotic wanted to maneuver the balls from the place they began into the purpose in the center. Throwing them up into the elevated basket was price extra factors than placing them in the decrease cage.

“Our teams’ biggest challenge this year has been time,” McKittrick stated. “As a first-year adviser, it took me quite a bit of it to figure out how everything worked and get the new materials ordered. Then we realized that we only had three weeks until the only regional competition in our part of the state. Thankfully for us, it was postponed a few weeks and that helped my students be more prepared.”

Many of the robotics membership members are additionally energetic in different golf equipment and sports activities, so scheduling assembly instances was a little bit of a problem, McKittrick stated. One workforce met totally on Wednesdays after college, whereas one other got here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and one group did nearly all of their work earlier than college from 7 to eight a.m.

“Since we didn’t have many weeks, I tried to open the labs as much as I could, and it was up to each of the teams to plan their time together,” he stated.

McKittrick’s function as adviser is to order tools, talk all the guidelines and laws, assist students perceive the problem and introduce them to the 2 applications they use – one being software program for coding the robotic and one for updating {hardware}.

“The rules are very clear that all of the planning, building, and coding should be done by the teams –ideally we would have some eighth-grade students in their second year of VEX robotics, but this year’s team was entirely students trying it for the first time,” McKittrick stated.

McKittrick stated he reached out to Rich Stevenson, president of Building Automation Products Inc. (BAPI) in Gays MIlls. “Not only did they donate money to help our team get to Dallas, but he has agreed to be an annual sponsor with the intent to allow our young engineers to tour his plant and learn about the different jobs they have there, so that will be a mentorship-type relationship. We are working on a similar relationship with Cardinal Glass as well.”

Organic Valley, BAPI, Nelson Global Products and Evenstad Tax & Financial have made donations to assist with membership prices and the World Championship journey.

In addition to VEX IQ tools, the center college has some robotics tools from the LEGO Mindstorm line that McKittrick want to get organized for Grades 5 and 6. “We offer a robotics experience for 4th grade students as well.”

The robotics membership was established in 2018, and workers member Janine Gallo was the adviser for three years earlier than transferring on to a different college district.