Botball (Draft 5)Mary Crowder
There is a place where every degree of measurement matters.
It’s a place where a Game Boy and a box of Legos aren’t just toys; they are a main focus for extreme competition.
It’s where creativity joins forces with intelligence and to create the ultimate machine.
This is the land of Botball, a whole new world for students at Douglas Anderson. And Douglas Anderson’s Botball team reached great success for their first year.
In Botball, teams from 13 regions from all over the country first compete within their region. Then the winners compete with the each other for the prize.
The Botball seven-week schedule stays about the same each year. It is divided into three parts: the pre-conference season, the regional building and programming season and tournament, as well as the additional national building and programming season and tournament.
“The first seven weeks was a drag; competing was the best,” said Charlie Gable, senior.
“We had two classes full of AP Physics seniors this year. And many of them wanted to major in physics or engineering,” said Mike Lipp, science teacher and Botball adviser. He tried the robotics team this year, collecting several of his students, and spending $2,300 on equipment, which motivated the students to get the ball rolling on building a robot.
The team built two robots. The first wasn’t used in competition, though it played the Mario Theme Song. The second was Goosepticon.
Goosepticon pulled the team through their competition. “We wanted to add a claw,” said Elizabeth Agnew, senior, “but the robot had to fit in a certain amount of space. In the end we had a claw that was inspired by Edward Scissorhands.”
The robots usually use Interactive C as the programming language, Game Boys with XBC as the controller, and fragile Legos as the base for building. They are controlled with light cameras and the program that the team designed; teams are not allowed to use remote controls.
Each robot is programmed to perform a task to earn points. “You program it to perform from an exact spot,” said Steven “Steve-O” Deshazer, senior. “If you angle your robot even slightly off course, or the placement of the poofballs is in the least bit off on the playing field, it will mess up the entire event for your robot.”
“It is possible to get negative points if you land in the lava,” said Deshazer. “It’s hard to actually get in the lava.”
“We were in the lava once,” said Agnew, “And we got –1 point…we were freaking out-it was so great!”
Though, our team had gotten away with points. “Goosepticon had bumpers on it so we didn’t run over the poofballs,” Deshazer said, “and without us realizing it, Goosepticon had pushed some poofballs to our starting gate and we got points!”
“We were the only ones excited,” said Charlie Gable, senior, “but that’s because we had so much fun!”
Despite the enjoyable competition day, there are many challenges in Botball and they each have a variety of open-ended solutions. Scoring also has many different levels. This keeps teams on their toes with strategy design and construction. To solve those complex problems, KISS, the institute for Practical Robots and organizers for Botball, recommends sticking to the KISS Philosophy of “Keep It Simple Stupid”.
Jared Mathis, senior, lived on caffeine through forty hours before and during the event, twiddling away with the robots, making last minute repairs and adjustments.
In the judging area, teams watch their robots perform and hope their programming works. Once the robots are placed, there is nothing a team can do but watch.
Or read Cosmo.
“Elizabeth removed us from nerdy-ness” Gable said. “Cosmo quizzes helped us…they said Steve-O would be a good boyfriend/girlfriend, which made him a good balance for the team.”
“We also put us all in ratio against each other,” Deshazer said as he recalled the percetages, such as DASOTA’s team having more girls than any other. “Our team is 20% African American!”
At the end of the day, DASOTA’s Botball team won the Judges’ Choice Rookie of the Year award. They also had almost a perfect score on their presentation of the robots based on their enthusiasm.
“I definitely plan on continuing Botball next year, maybe let some underclassmen join. It was a positive experience, very time consuming and stressful as well. But I’ve learned a lot to prepare for next year,” said Lipp.
“It was a pretty positive experience.” Danielle Rouse, senior said, “We were all like family.”