4 Summer 2019 Applegater
Roving Repor ter
Applegate teen leads robotics
team in pursuit of championship
BY TOM CARSTENS
team.” Participants are encouraged to
apply for college scholarships available
through the program.
Applegater Margaux Quady was just
12 when she caught the “robot bug.” She’s
now a senior at St. Mary’s High School
and the Robotics Drive Coach for her
13-member team, “Trial N Terror” (TNT).
One of three teams from St. Mary’s, TNT
has been advancing in the regional robotic
championships in which teams from all
over Oregon compete for the chance to go
on to the world championship matches,
held this year in Houston.
TNT has just completed its fifth
season. Twice the team has made it all
the way to the world championships.
This year, the team advanced to the state
competition, where they finished 11th
out of 208 teams in Oregon. In the state
finals, the team took first place for Robot
Design and finished third for the coveted
Control Award. The team has recently
been selected as an alternate for the world
championship. All in all, Trial N Terror
has the third highest tournament average
in Oregon and the fourth highest score
for all matches played in
Oregon. Unbelievably,
TNT has the 39th
highest tournament
average in the world—
out of approximately
5,800 teams!
The theme of the
competition changes
every year and is
g ove r n e d by … w ai t
for it…over 50 pages
of mind-bending
regulations. Team-
designed robots
must autonomously
TNT coaches Herb Quady and Gary Conner perform a series of
discuss strategies. Photo: Tom Carstens. preprogrammed tasks
One snowy Januar y morning I
walked into a St. Mary’s High School lab
bursting with teenagers. It was eerily quiet.
Everywhere I looked, young people were
poring over data, working on software, or
fine-tuning electrical components. And
then, right out of an Isaac Asimov novel,
I spied four crazy contraptions that looked
like aliens from outer space. Could these
be the offspring of NASA’s famous Martian
explorer, the indefatigable “Rover”?
Turns out, these were robots starring in
an international tournament known as
“FIRST Tech Challenge.”
The goal of the competition,
which started in 1989, was to attract
young people to science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Through this program, kids from all
over the world, working in two-team
alliances, “are challenged to design, build,
program, and operate robots to compete
in a head-to-head challenge.” According
to FIRST Tech Challenge, the idea
is to “practice engineering principles,
while realizing the value of hard
work, innovation, and working as a
followed by several
complex maneuvers
controlled by drive
team members
using cellphones—
all within strictly
controlled space and
time constraints. This
year the robots must
accurately retrieve
and place a marker,
then correctly select a
randomly determined
target. Teams then
control the robots to
differentiate, collect,
and deposit two types
of targets into discrete
bins. TNT named
their robot “Tubby.”
Tubby was over his
42-pound weight limit
so Margaux had to put
him on an emergency diet,
meticulously trimming his
metallic parts so he (she? it?)
could compete.
M a r g a u x’s t e a m i s
coached by two Applegaters:
her dad, Herb Quady, a
winemaker and vintner;
a n d G a r y C o n n e r, a
vintner and retired rocket
scientist (really—is this
fair?). The overall effort in
southern Oregon is led by
Kent Daughterman, a local
cardiologist and founder of
SOAR (Southern Oregon
Area Robotics).
Margaux will graduate
from St. Mary’s this year.
She hopes to attend
Rochester University, where
she expects the winters to
be a tad cooler than the
Applegate’s. She’s already
fluent in Mandarin and
plans to major in mechanical
engineering. She believes that
this combination of skills
will be instantly marketable
upon graduation.
Tom Carstens
541-846-1025
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Margaux Quady huddles with “Tubby.”
Photo: Tom Carstens.
Tubby works furiously against the clock.
Photo: Tom Carstens.
TNT Senior Drive Team members remotely manipulate
Tubby. From left to right: Gordon Daughterman,
Margaux Quady, and Calix Kim. Not pictured: Sam Schaffer.
Photo: Tom Carstens.