Students test robotics skills at Show Me Center event

Victoria Blue knows the majority of the children at her school in Chaffee, Missouri, aren't spending their weekends building robots and that it's not traditionally the "coolest" thing a senior does with her time. But she doesn't care; she's having fun.

"I like how close we are as a team. We're always together, and it's just really fun," Blue said.

Wearing a gray T-shirt labeled "Furious George" for her team, a pair of green suspenders, an orange bow on the top of her head and a pair of bejeweled plastic lab safety glasses, there's no denying Blue is one of the best-dressed competitors at the third qualifier for the sixth annual FIRST Tech Challenge hosted by Southeast Missouri State University. Teams began arriving at 7:30 a.m. Saturday at the Show Me Center for a day of competition. Teams have been creating and preparing their robots for weeks, and today nine teams move another step closer to the world championship in St. Louis.

Of the 42 teams registered, 12 local teams entered to test their engineering skills and challenge their robots. Registered were three teams from Scott City, three from Chaffee, one from Leopold, Missouri, three from Cape Girardeau and two from Jackson.

Eureka High School's Bartek Blaszczyk tinkers on a robot between rounds of the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition Saturday at the Show Me Center. (Glenn Landberg)

The way competition worked was four high-school teams were put into a small arena, then combined to make two teams, red and blue. The robots had 2 1/2 minutes to knock loose a stick holding a container of plastic balls, then pick up the balls and place them in tubes of varying sizes to accumulate points.

"[The first] 30 seconds, there's an autonomous period where the robots drive themselves -- the humans cannot touch the controllers," event emcee Kevin Doerr said. "After that, the humans are behind the wheel guiding the robots actions for the remainder of the match. For the last 30 seconds, they can drive the tubes up the ramps for higher elevation and to get even more points."

Blue explained the robots get points for basically everything. When they move without being controlled, they receive points for descending their ramp, the way they turn, the way the robot's mechanisms move and for the number of balls the robots collect.

The teams were told of the challenge in September and have from that time to create and modify their robots. For team Furious George, the majority of its robot was built quickly.

A Lego man gets a ride on a robot during the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition Saturday at the Show Me Center. (Glenn Landberg)

"This specific robot, other then the wheel base, was built in five days. We changed it pretty much completely other then the harvester," Blue said. "It was good at the Arkansas competition; it got us in the finals. But we thought we could go farther."

Up in the stands of the Show Me Center, the "coach" for the three Chaffee Industrial Arts teams, Jaron McMurry, looked down on his students and monitored their teamwork.

"I try to let them do their own thing; I try to let them solve their own problems in the pit, run their own game strategies. That way, if there's a teacher or a person over their shoulder the whole time, they don't really think for themselves; they rely on me," McMurry said.

Each team competes in five matches.

Drivers from the Chaffee Industrial Arts team, Ryan Burton, left, Austin Dirnberger and Brandon Ivester pilot their robot in a round of the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition at the Show Me Center Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. (Glenn Landberg)

McMurry said although there are different teams within Chaffee Industrial Arts, they still all work together to build the best bots.

"For the most part I give them free range, and it's kind of neat, our three teams, although they compete against each other they work with each other. Like one might figure out how to pick the ball up better and they'll share that with the other teams and then they're all kind of doing the same thing, but then one team will modify and make it better, so it's kind of nice that they have three teams that they can work together and feed off each other," McMurry said.

At the end of Saturday, all three Chaffee Industrial Arts teams were among the nine teams that advanced to the Rolla Robotics Qualifier at Rolla High School on March 7 in Rolla, Missouri.

smaue@semissourian.com

388-3644

Pertinent address:

Show Me Center, 1333 N. Sprigg St.