SMHS Club Prepares for ‘Stronghold’ Competition With Public Demonstration of Robot That Fires Boulders, Scales High Walls
Sunday night’s official rollout for San Marino High School’s Titanium Robotics Club got off to a promising start with a time lapse video, using footage taken from a remote camera mounted inside room 207, wherein seven wild weeks of activity creating the group’s entry for the 2016 competition season were memorialized in small snippets for community members attending the annual rollout to see.
The relative inactivity of the dozens of students adorned in their gray sweatshirts stood in stark contrast to the flurry of activity that danced across the screen, due in no small part to the hundreds of hours the team has spent – including at least a dozen that very day – designing and constructing the six-wheeled wonder they hope will bring glory to the Titanium Robotics Club.
Soon to be unveiled was the club’s answer to a challenge called ‘Stronghold,’ a medieval-themed game that will be played by two alliances consisting of three teams each. Competing robots must breach the opponent’s’ defenses, or “outer works,” and capture their tower by first firing “boulders” (small foam balls) before surrounding or scaling the tower using rungs.
Points are scored by crossing elements of the tower’s outer terrain, shooting boulders into the opposing tower’s five goals in order to lower the tower strength, and by surrounding and scaling the tower.
It’s much less complicated and substantially more interesting than it sounds and bonus points are given for acts of cooperation rather than opposition. An introductory video explains that there are “over 18,000 possible field configurations from the eight defensive options.”
Mechanics President Jessica Cameron, a senior, introduced her fellow team members to a capacity crowd that seemed equally as interested in the explanation of the challenge as watching the impending exhibition, which featured the “bot’s” many skills.
Mentors Keiko Hiranaka, Bob French, Zachary Hurst, Audrey Chu and Ethan Rooke were introduced to the assemblage and each received a hearty round of applause from the weary students.
Hiranaka, a first-year math teacher at San Marino High School, was part of a Robotics team during her high school days in Seattle and was thrilled when she learned of the existence of Titanium Robotics.
“These kids are very dedicated and have a great deal of enthusiasm for Robotics,”
Hiranaka said.
French gave special mention to Zach Kaufman and Spencer Rooke for their quick work in getting the system computerized.
School Board member Joseph Chang spoke about the progress the Robotics Club has made in the decade it has been in existence. Chang recalled when the group had no location to call its own and moved “from driveway to driveway.” He particularly remembered an evening shortly before competition when the group was rained on “and all the kids were crying.”
No more – the group now has a permanent home on the west side of campus with an adjacent, covered area where the club can rehearse the challenges.
This is Cameron’s fourth year in the group and she told the assemblage that the challenges – which are designed and introduced by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) – “get tougher and tougher every year.”
The group is famously independent. Faculty and community advisors go out of their way to stay out of the students’ business. That model will be pushed to the limit this year as chief advisor Scott Barton has been sidelined due to health problems.
Titanium Robotics has two scheduled competitions. The Los Angeles Regional will be held at the Long Beach Convention Center from March 10-12 and the Ventura Regional takes place March 24-26 at Ventura College.
Cameron serves as engineering president; Zach Kaufman and Spencer Rooke are engineering vice presidents; William Li is the group’s mechanical captain; Shawn Ti is electrical captain; Kobe Oh serves as coding captain; Raymond Liu is CAD captain and Michael Chang is director of safety and training.
Sarah Hasel is business president; Blake Castleman serves as business vice president; Stacey Yee is in charge of communications and public relations; Jacob Yee serves as treasurer and Keith Ng and Jonathan Kay hold down the position of media captain.
