Walking through the front doors of Bellingham High School on Saturday, Feb. 11 was a lot like walking into the pit at a NASCAR race. Among the whirring engines and vibrating batteries, frenzied debates about strategy and improvements filled the air.
Fifty-three teams of students from around Washington state gathered at the school to compete in the VEX Robotics Competition. Presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, a middle and high school robotics program, the competition involves matches between robots constructed, designed and coded by students.
The competition game changes every year; sometimes it revolves around robots fighting each other, but most of the time the game is more like a skills test. According to the Competition Foundation website, “in addition to learning valuable engineering skills, students gain life skills such as teamwork, perseverance, communication, collaboration, project managed and critical thinking.”
Several students at Saturday’s competition said although it was stressful, it was a fun and friendly experience.
“It’s been interesting,” Squalicum senior Gwen Stodoln said. “It’s a constant struggle trying to change and troubleshoot stuff.”
This year, the competition game was called “Spin Up,” and involved two teams of two robots on a field picking up discs and shooting them into baskets. Each robot was built and coded by teams of students. Half of the teams at the competition came from the robotics classes at Bellingham, Sehome and Squalicum high schools.
“It’s a really good opportunity for students to learn,” said Kevin Criez, who teaches engineering, manufacturing and robotics at Sehome High School.
The matches were held in three separate arenas set up in the school’s gymnasium. The first fifteen seconds of the game required the robots to be autonomous, fully relying on the coding done by the students. In the last 10 seconds, each robot fired out strings to cover as many tiles as possible for a final opportunity to collect points.
Exothermic Creation, a team from Redmond, King County, set the world record in skill score during the event. This was their 17th year competing, making them one of the oldest teams in the world. They paired with Insomniac Orange, a team from Asotin, Asotin County, to win the competition.
After each match, students would hurry back to the commons area to repair and improve their robots. During this time, all eyes were glued to the giant television on the wall where scores were updated after every match.
Sehome students Grant Gusukuma and Izhar Nolasci, who came in second place during a Feb. 4 competition in Lake Stevens, Snohomish County, decided to completely redesign their robot before Saturday’s competition.
“Even though we came in second, we came to the decision to redesign for a more efficient build,” Gusukuma said. Many students, including Gusukuma, continue working to improve their robots after each competition.
Students from all three local high schools also compete once a month in the Whatcom Robotics League spearheaded by Paul Clement, the robotics teacher at Bellingham High School.
“We are super lucky to have a community that supports these types of opportunities,” Clements said. He said the robotics class gives students the opportunity to have a long-term project that requires a lot of independence.
Clements was proud of his students for working extremely hard in preparation for Saturday’s competition. “The dedication shows,” he said.
Lily Connot, a 10th grader in her first year in the Sehome program, said the coding aspect is what drew her to the class. “It’s fun to see what I do physically affect stuff,” she said.
The top-performing teams will now move on to compete at the state robotics tournament on March 11 in Lake Stevens.
A previous version of a caption misspelled Alden Bachmeier. The caption was updated on Feb. 15, at 12:26 p.m. to reflect this change. The Cascadia Daily News regrets this error.
