How does Orchard Hills plan to overcome the challenge of robotics this year?
We are faced with an unprecedented challenge: the COVID-19 Pandemic, which comes with unprecedented changes. This pandemic has affected many different aspects of our daily lives, including robotics. Robotics is mainly a team effort, but this year, we are forced to be apart from each other and work remotely. So this arises the question: how do we, as a school, plan to build our robots when we can't even see each other? We decided to take this procedure in very small steps, as follows:
STEP 1: Get back to school:
Our teams were created during the summer, but that still made some of us wonder how we were going to build our robot. Our first goal was to get back to school, whether that was online or in-person, which at least allowed us to take the required steps to begin our journey.
STEP 2: Everything gets much harder:
Once we were back in school during August, COVID-19 showed no signs of recession, so we were all disappointed to find out that there was no hope of building, as the risk of sharing materials or coming in close contact with anyone was very scary for all.
STEP 3: A diversion of focus:
Instead of building, we decided to focus on the other aspect of robotics: notebooking. We felt that if we began to notebook, we would at least have the chance to plan our robot build, as we would have done in the regular season. If the pandemic decided to clear up, then we would already have our robot planned our completely.
STEP 4: A spark in darkness:
Finally, after weeks of notebooking, our school district allowed us to switch to the hybrid program, which allowed the students who wanted to come to school to come twice a week, and stay online for the rest of the time. This didn't make that much of a difference, but it still brought the possibility of material sharing.
STEP 5: A whole lot of planning:
In order to build, we needed a very detailed plan and material list, as it would be safer for everyone to get the exact materials the needed. This took place towards the middle of November, and by Thanksgiving Break, every team had the permission to build. We however, did not allow the standard format of building.
STEP 6: OUR PLAN!
Our plan consisted of a hybrid student from a team going to select materials from the robotics room. Many, many thanks to our coach, Mrs. Lund, for spending countless hours organizing all the parts so we were able to select anything and everything we would possibly need. After the student picked out the materials based on the material list, we would select a student from each team who was the best in that certain subsystem (the chassis was first). If that student was on the hybrid plan, then they would simply pick their parts up from school. If the selected student is fully online, then they would pick the parts up from the office. They would build the robot at home by themselves, and briefly inform the team about what was going on. Once they were done, the parts were brought back to school, santatized, and then the process would repeat itself.