Naperville robotics competitors learn 'it can't just sometimes work'
When groups of high school students like the Huskie Robotics team from Naperville Unit District 203 build their entries for robotics tournaments, one of the most real-world things they learn is everything has to work.
Not just some of the time, but all of the time.
That's how Geoff Schmit, lead mentor for Huskie Robotics, says his group made it to the quarterfinals at its first event of the 2019 season, the FIRST Robotics Midwest Regional in Chicago.
The event included 53 teams from Illinois, Arkansas, Ohio and Wisconsin, as well as China, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, competing with self-made robots in a game designed with a "deep space" theme.
Alliances of robots built by three different teams competed against each other in several preliminary rounds, then a playoff bracket. Each time, teams tried to score the most points in 2 minutes and 30 seconds by directing their robots to complete tasks of inserting ball-shaped pieces of "cargo" into structures designed to look like rockets or spaceships, or placing disc-shaped "hatch panels" on the outside of these structures to contain the cargo inside.
Shilpa Sathyanathan, a senior and business captain for the Huskie Robotics team, said many schools choose to specialize their robot so it will complete only one of the tasks. Huskie Robotics' contraption, called Clementine, was built solely to place hatch panels on the rockets and spaceships.
Team mentor Schmit said the strategy paid off once the team devised it during about a half-dozen "designs and iterations of the engineering cycle" since January.
"One thing we've learned this year is how important it is to make sure everything we do is really high-quality and reliable and consistent," Schmit said. "They performed so well and so consistently, and that's really what it takes to be successful at a competition like this. It can't just sometimes work."
Huskie Robotics and three other teams in the FIRST Robotics Midwest Regional were sponsored by Lisle-based Navistar, which provides financial support for parts and technical support for construction, said Kristin Sattayatam, director of employee communications and community relations.
It's exciting for Navistar experts to work with students from Naperville, as well as Chicago, Oswego and Yorkville, on robot handling techniques and construction.
"They are really developing these robots from nothing," Sattayatam said. "They're really learning skills well beyond what you would think of as typical engineering skills."
Schmit said the company's expertise paid off this year as Huskie Robotics was able to build up a subset of students who focus on the machining and milling aspects of robot creation. Previously only one student had experience with such techniques, he said.
Competing against other suburban students from teams based in Arlington Heights, Aurora, Lake Zurich, St. Charles and Geneva, Huskie Robotics members also received this year's Judges Award, which recognized them for consistently firing on all cylinders, Schmit said.
Another honor the team has received during Sathyanathan's tenure is the Gracious Professionalism Award.
This recognition encourages competitors to be helpers and mentors, sharing parts or advice if another team's robot encounters a problem with its Wi-Fi radio system or the chains that spin its wheels, for example. That award this year went to the WildStang team with members from schools in Northwest Suburban High School District 214, as well as MacArthur Middle School in Prospect Heights.
Teams get a half-hour or so between each match to make repairs and, during that time, spectators see students working frantically in a "pit" environment akin to the pits for tuneups in a NASCAR race.
"It's interesting to see the different solutions teams have come up with," Sathyanathan said. "It's not just about competition. It's about helping each other out so everyone has a good time."