The crowd lining the arena stands at the DECC last weekend cheered wildly as robots competed against one another in alliances, the lights flashing red or blue depending on the winner of each match. Engineering and programming skills were on display as each match featured an opening of fully automated movement, followed by the human programmers taking the controls and pushing their bots to victory.
Beginning on February 26, Silver Bay’s Mariner Robotics team set up shop at the DECC for the FIRST Robotics Competition – Lake Superior Regional. While the 26th and 27th were spent in preparation, on the 28th competition began against 54 teams from five states.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics members spent the last six weeks designing, building, and programming a robot to compete in this year’s game, which this year had an underwater theme and was called “Reefscape”.
Mariner Robotics has ten students: James (12th grade); Ruby (11th); Ollie, Soren, and Cooper (10th); Boone, Emmett, Briar, and Logan (9th grade); Wade (8th), and honorary team member Eloise (6th grade). “We have a young team and they work so well together,” team media manager Jessica Moen-Baker said. The Mariners also have five team mentors: Chris Belanger, Floyd Baker, Charlie Michels, Al Robertson, and Phil Goutermont.
The competition continued on Saturday, March 1st, and at the end Mariner Robotics was ranked 36 out of 54, and held the record of 4-5-0 on their alliances with other teams. “They had some tough matches,” Moen-Baker commented.
Al Robertson’s father, Steve, analyzed Mariner Robotics’ scores. “They had a great bot this year, but suffered bad luck with three losses against what were the highest scores in the event (on both sides). Our score in the last of those would have been a winning score in 76 of the 81 qualifying rounds. The team and machine ended on a high note with a great performance and win against a team with the highest ranked robot.”
Moen-Baker agreed. “Despite some of the matchups, which comes down to luck, they overall did a fantastic job.”
Youth looking to get involved in a robotics team can visit www.firstinspires.org/. Programs for younger students, including FIRST Lego League are also available.
