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9/13/2023
By: Ona Terrell
A new season of Robotics is starting and along with that comes the building of new robots, planning, and notebooking. “We are just starting our season and so far we haven’t had any competitions or anything but we are so far ahead of every other year at this point that I’m super excited.” States Mrs.Grimes. Since the year of 2017 Mrs. Grimes has been the coach for the robotics team, “I started robotics here at EJHS 6 years ago so this is our 6th year of Robotics and we’ve grown from having 12 kids to over 50 kids now.”
Here is a picture of the field for the Full Volume Robotics Competition.
Robotics is an afterschool program where students will collaborate and design robots to fit with the game for robotics competitions. The game this year is called Full Volume, It is on a field with different color/size blocks scattered around the field with 3 different goals to get the blocks into. In the corner of the field, there is a supply zone where there are multiple blocks in a random arrangement. The goal is to get as many blocks into the 3 goals as possible. At the end of a match if you park your robot halfway in the supply zone to get points or park your robot fully in the supply zone to get more points.
Some students in Robotics have been doing it for 3 to 4 years, “I have been doing robotics since I was in 4th grade at the EIS and continued it through middle school.” Says Ailynn Kvale, an 8th grader in Robotics,”My favorite part of robotics is probably being able to build something that can be my own. Also being able to travel to different competitions and make friends outside of my grade.” As a Robotics student, you build a lot of different types of robots in order to fit the challenge. “My favorite thing I've built in robotics was the robot my team built last year. It was very small and compact, but that also gave us an edge because we were able to maneuver around the field a lot easier.” Says Ailynn Kvale.
Towards the end of November, there will start to be competitions, and at the competitions you do a lot of different things. “Our robotics competitions they start at about 8:00 in the morning and we spend some time practicing we get a list of the people we’re gonna work with and then we try to go meet them and strategize and then we go up when it’s our turn and we work with another team to score as many points as possible.” Says Mrs.Grimes. “Once that match is over then we go find the next group that we’re partnered with and we get to know them and strategize with them and then we do that about 8 times each tournament and then at the end the highest point team wins.”
A picture of a previous robot built for Robotics.
Robotics overall is a fun and mind-working activity. Working with your friends to come up with a robot to fit the competition and then competing it at competitions is a lot of work but overall very rewarding.
Contributor bio:
Ona is a 14-year-old 8th grader who likes to spend time with her friends and family. She enjoys reading, journaling, Robotics, and dance. Her favorite books are Harry Potter, Divergent, Throne Of Glass, and The Inheritance Games.
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