The Battle of the Bots

On Saturday, December 10th, JMSS Robotics club came back strong for their first competition after a two year absence. They built and competed with a VEX robot, which is a globally-run robotics program for middle school and high school teams. Each year, a new engineering challenge is presented and competitors must use unique VEX components in innovative ways to construct their bot.

Robotics club has been working on their robot since mid-October to be ready in time for the competition. They designed most of the systems within the robot from scratch, carefully considering every piece that went into it on both hardware and software. Unfortunately, a last-minute test the night before the competition left their intake in desperate need of repair. Without it, they couldn’t pick up discs to shoot them, which was an integral part of their strategy for scoring points. There was no time to fix it.

That Saturday, the team arrived at Longfields Davidson Heights at 8:00am and got to work. They completely tore out and rebuilt the intake system in four hours. Even with delays from the competition, they narrowly cut the time for inspection and only just made the first match. From there, more problems persisted. A disc lodged underneath their robot and prevented it from moving, and in another match, the disc got stuck halfway up the hastily-assembled intake. By noon, the team decided to change strategy. They then built the battle bot. Though it is against the rules to destroy other robots or prevent them from moving, playing bumper cars with other bots is allowed to some degree. So, JMSS reinforced the base to build a tank of a robot made of steel and aluminium. They could now do several things: push other robots off-course as they shot, block them from getting to rollers, use the roller themselves, and push discs into the correct zones. This finally started earning them points, and by the end of the qualifiers, they were earning most if not all of the points for their teams and winning matches.

In the end, they didn’t proceed to finals, but with 27 teams from across Ontario, it was tough competition. It also ended on a positive note, because even though it was exceptionally chaotic, a lot of progress was made.

JMSS Robotics club will be continuing to refine their robot for future competitions, both in terms of the VEX robot and the upcoming lego mindstorms competitions. If any students would like to get involved, they are invited to talk to Mr. Green and join up. New members are always welcome; no experience required!