schools
february16
2017
Vernonia Robotics Programs
participants in the 7th to 12th grades.
Volunteer Jeff Ely has served as the lead
mentor for this program for several years
and has a handful of parents helping as
mentors as well. This program is very
similar to the FRC, just on a smaller
scale. They too compete with other pub-
lic and private schools and organiza-
tions. The competition area is roughly
the size of half a basketball court and the
robots can fi t on a table top in size. Other
than size, this program is very similar to
FRC.
Both programs require the ro-
bots to operate autonomously through
computer programs generated by stu-
dents as an initial challenge during the
competition. The robots are then operat-
ed by remote control by students for the
duration of the competition, who move
the robots around the playing surface
while attempting to complete tasks and
accumulate points.
There are programs through
FIRST for grade school aged students,
but currently those are not options in Ver-
nonia. There is a new program, mentored
by new fi rst and second grade teacher
Debbie Taylor and her husband, which is
offering an after school science club that
helps teach many aspects that the robot-
ics teams work on, plus more. This is an
exciting addition for the school’s STEM
programing. (See Schools Update article
on page 13 for more on this program.)
Vernonia’s FTC teams just
completed their fi rst competition at the
end of January at Oregon State Univer-
sity. The two teams, Squirrel?! and Red
Shirts, fi nished 8th and 11th in the com-
petition out of 26 teams.
“This is another strong showing,
and Oregon is known for having some
very strong teams nationally,” said men-
tor Ely.
The Red Shirts ended up
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continued from front page
qualifying for the Super Regional
Tournament on the weekend of February
12th. The Squirrel?! team just missed
the cut-off.
Carly Bergren working on
programing the FTC robot.
Other volunteer mentors with
the team include Josh and Kat Leach,
Jake and Chrissy Bergren and Susan Ely.
Between both teams there are
eight student members and six adult
mentors. This year’s challenge is called
Velocity Vortex and involves both au-
tonomous and operator directed com-
ponents. In this challenge, robots work
in teams of two against another team
as they collect and shoot whiffl e balls,
change beacon colors to their teams’ col-
or, and the greatest challenge, grasping
and lifting a 24 inch diameter yoga ball
fi ve feet in the air and place it on a rotat-
ing pedestal.
The only limitation for the robot
is that it fi t within an 18 inch cube prior
to starting the game. Once the game
is underway it can expand to any size.
“This starting limitation forces the team
to think of creative ways to compress
motors, servos, sensors, drive systems
and electronics into a sturdy design that
can score points and handle the abuse of
a robot collision,” says Ely.
Vernonia has had two FTC
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teams for the last three years. Each year
the challenge is unique and the Verno-
nia teams work side by side in coordi-
nation and cooperation in design and
construction, thus allowing for a greater
opportunity to learn and share. “The
fl exibility of multiple teams and months
to build result in unique designs for the
competition,” explains Ely. “This year,
the teams both chose to drive on treads
(vs. wheels), but one team chose to focus
on sensors and shooting a whiffl e ball,
while the other solely focused on grasp-
ing and lifting the yoga ball. Both strate-
gies can be successful if done effectively
and effi ciently.”
Aubrey Leach is a sophomore
student competitor with Vernonia’s FTC
team and explained that the team keeps a
required engineering notebook to docu-
ment their project. The notebook ex-
plains the team’s design concept and in-
cludes team and mentors bios, a log that
refl ects student’s thoughts, successes,
and strategies for improvements, along
with how they contributed to the proj-
ect from each day, photographs of their
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Aubrey Leach and Devon Bergren
working on the FTC robot.
progress, a list of the materials they used
and their costs, and blueprint drawings
of their robot.
Leach says the team has made
continued on page 16
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