By:Tom Jordan
Robotics club eyes national competition
Because science is the endless frontier, every experiment is a perpetual work-in-progress. The F-5, a concoction of aluminum and rubber and gears and wires created by the South Side High School Robotics Club, is no exception. The robot did what it was designed to do during the regional U.S. FIRST Robotics Competition, hosted by Suffolk Community College in Brentwood March 8-10, but a 32nd-place finish out of 33 schools demonstrated there is room for improvement. And competition is essential for progress.
Borrowing its name from the most powerful type of cyclone, the F-5 was built for speed and power. So the robotics club treated its slow start as a bump in the road to the national U.S. FIRST competition, which is set to take place in Orlando next month. The students were nonplussed by their low ranking in their preliminary run.
It was hard but we had a good time, said Raphael Schay, a junior. It was our first time competing and luck wasn't on our side. But we have a point of reference now.
While South Side was a first-time entrant in the contest, most of the other schools had competed in the robotics show before.
The competition required entrants to maneuver their robots by remote control through a series of obstacles. Points were awarded when the robots lifted large rubber balls and dropped them into a seven-foot tall goal.
South Side's plan to use the F-5 first as a battering ram to knock the goal onto it's side didn't give South Side the advantage they had hoped.
Our strategy didn't really work to our advantage, said Chris D'Ambrosio, science teacher and team coach, after the team's 11th and final match. The F-5 had battled to 25th after the first day of competition, then a string of bad luck, such as another team's robot falling over onto its side and blocking the F-5's path to the goal, led to a drop in the standings on Saturday. It was a learning experience to participate in this for the first time. We know what's in store for us [in Orlando] now.
Team South Side does not have the time, or necessarily the inclination, to head back to the drawing board at this point, but the it has already discussed ideas that will help make the F-5 the superior machine they think it can be in time for the national competition. They will, for instance, give the robot an extra arm, which will help its balance.
Planning for the competition began back in October, and construction of the F-5 started a few weeks later. A team of local engineers
