Portledge in the Now.

The Portledge Robotics Competition Season

by Danny Nelson

The Portledge Robotics’ competition season began on Sunday, January 7th, at the Lynbrook High School FIRST Tech Challenge Qualifier. For many students, this was the first robotics competition they have ever attended, so there was a lot to take in. The day was filled with ups and downs while being a great learning experience for all the students. The teams each faced a challenge right from the start by failing robot inspection (slight sizing issue and cable management concerns), but they displayed quick thinking and amazing collaboration to address the issues successfully within a few minutes. Quick thinking, problem solving and strong teamwork became the themes of success for the day.
Each team measured that success differently during the competition. Team 7417 (Josh Yoder '18, Max Sanborn '18, Aaron Vinsky '19, Evan Rubinstein '19, Cole Balacek '19 and Andrea Sun '20) had a commendable day going 3 and 2 during the seeding matches. This record and having the highest overall point score ranked them number eight out of twenty-five teams. Due to their hard work, they were chosen to join the second of four alliance teams and advanced to the semi-finals. Sadly, they did not move on to the finals, but had a good day overall and learned a lot about how they could continue to develop their robot for the next competition on January 27th. They were also nominated for the "Motivate Award" during closing ceremonies. This award recognizes that a "Team embraces the culture of FIRST and clearly shows what it means to be a Team. This judged award celebrates the Team that represents the essence of the FIRST Tech Challenge competition through Team building, Team spirit and displayed enthusiasm. [The winner of this award is] a Team who makes a collective effort to make FIRST known throughout their school and community, and sparks others to embrace the culture of FIRST" (2017-2018 FIRST Tech Challenge Game Manual Part 1).

Team 8818 (Ke Cheng Yu ’18, Kyle Chang ‘19, Zach Bernstein ‘20 and Nik Ereshkin ‘18 in absentia) had a rough day of mechanical challenges and controller issues, but shined during their final two matches doing something that only a handful of the twenty-five teams could do: score the Relic game element in the third zone(here is a video of them practicing the feat before the competition). To accomplish this during the match, the students had to discuss their plan of action (which included some clever strategy), communicate effectively throughout the process, and remain calm and collected while manipulating the robot's controls within the given time. This success is something they would build on for the next competition.

The season’s final day of robotics was on January 27th at Sewanhaka High School. Once more, the day had its challenges, but was also an opportunity to see how teams could improve their performances. Both Teams, 7417 and 8818, worked tirelessly between competition qualifiers updating their autonomous programs and modifying their robots. Josh, Cheng and Aaron used the time to get their robots’ color sensors to work with their autonomous programs to be able to decipher which colored jewel to knock off of the platform. They also spent a number of hours fine tuning their robots’ parking paths from various starting locations. Max, Andrea and Cole worked on changing the gear ratios on 7417’s mecanum wheels to make the robot a little quicker and responsive; however, they limited their changes so that they could focus more on driving practice (here is a video of one of their earlier full practice runs). On team 8818, Zach, Kyle and Nik switched out their robot’s grippy stealth wheels for omni-directional wheels and added a fifth wheel to the center of the robot to take advantage of slide-drive. This change allowed the robot to move in all directions, increasing its mobility (here is a video of one of their early test runs with Kyle driving).     

During the competition, Team 7417 was able to improve its average round score from 48 points at Lynbrook to 78 points at Sewanhaka. They were even able to score 92 points in a single round! Team 8818 had similar score improvements. At Lynbrook they averaged around 42 points per round, but were able to get closer to 70 points at Sewanhaka. After five rounds of matches, 8818’s complex and ambitious design ran into issues that caused them to earn inconsistent scores, which didn’t advance them to the semi-finals. As for 7417, it was ranked just outside of the top ten and was picked to join one of the four team alliances in the semi-finals. They didn’t advance on to the finals, but played two exciting semi-final matches with their alliance partners.    

It was an exciting and rewarding competition season for all of us involved, and Mr. Coleman and I are very proud of our students. Moreover, we want to say, "thank you" to all of the families for supporting our students and this STEM program!
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