Rookie NYAN Robotics team advances to state
Mundelein-based NYAN Robotics recently competed in the Northern Illinois League Championship, making it to the finals. Its alliance (NYAN and two other teams) ultimately won the championship and now advances to compete in the Illinois State Robotics Competition Feb. 26-27 in Elgin.
NYAN ("Not Your Average Nerds") Robotics is a community-based team of high school students funded by several sponsors. The team competes in the FIRST Tech Challenge, where they design, build and test a robot that operates both autonomously and with driver control on a playing field with alliance and competitor robots to complete tasks and earn points.
In designing, building, and testing the robot, the team learns important skills based in STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. NYAN's mission is to not only enhance their own STEM skills, but also to foster an interest in robotics within the community.
In its 2015-16 rookie season, NYAN hosted or participated in 10 community-based outreach programs and workshops. The team also promotes itself and its activities, STEM, robotics, and FIRST on its website.
"It's so exciting to advance to state in our rookie year," said Kevin Coda, captain of team NYAN. "It's a great opportunity for us to meet and learn from some of the most innovative and creative coders, builders, and robotic designers in this year's challenge."
NYAN's robot - affectionately named JARVIS - is designed to move agilely and quickly around a field littered with debris, depositing items into buckets, pushing items into scoring zones, climbing steep inclines, and ultimately doing a pullup, suspending itself (all 18 pounds) from a bar 4 feet off the ground.
The functionality of NYAN's robot, along with the documentation of the robot's development and the team's work throughout its rookie season, earned the team several key awards this year, including a Control Award, a third place Think Award, a third-place Inspire Award, and an Outstanding Rookie Award.
The team is hoping to apply what they have learned throughout the season to perform well at the Illinois State Robotics Competition.
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