Robotics, the High School Sport for the Mind
By Cara, Elena and Susan Bloomquist
Robotics is a high school club seeking to bring relevance to traditional science and
math curriculum. The club features adult mentors and high school students working
together during a six week challenge to build a robot suitable for competition. The
competition looks a little like a computer game come to life. Real robots built by the
First Robotics team are driven by team members to obtain competition goals. The
team competes at the Colorado Regional event, in Denver on March 24-26, this year.
Nederland Middle Senior High School hosts the Pirates, Team 1584. This year,
mentors from companies like Ball Aerospace and Medtronics, along with former team
members and local high school students are busy designing and building a working
robot to meet the 2016 Stronghold Challenge. The Pirate Swabs participating are Hiatt
Franck, William Culver, James McCoy, Cara Bloomquist, Sommyr Bass, and Noah
Sineni. They meet six days a week. The Swabs are joined by the Middle School
Powder Monkeys, Peter Breche, Zach Weiner, Hakan Chuton, Ben Nichols, and Elena
Bloomquist, on Wednesdays after school. Team 1584 is a small team in comparison to
the much larger teams at Boulder High School or other Colorado High School teams.
Although a small team, the Pirates can build a robot which is on an even playing field
with a robot from the larger teams.
Each High School student who volunteers their time and effort to the task is mentored
in multiple ways. Team members use NMSHS shop tools with supervision and are
instructed in software programming, both critical elements in robot construction.
Returning team members use sophisticated programs to design and prepare plans for
building the robot. Some of the team members and mentors put in hundreds of hours
during the six week build season. Mentors, members and parents contribute in many
ways, for example, teaching and learning about website design, fund raising, and team
management, planning for the challenge.
First Robotics supports and provides materials for the teams and hosts the Stronghold
Challenge. The competition emphasizes cooperative learning. Individual teams, such
as Pirates, Team 1584, will make alliances with two other teams to challenge another
alliance of three teams. So three robots will challenge three robots on a competition
field provided by First Robotics. The Regional Stronghold challenge will take place in
Denver in March, 2016.
Chinook West’s student Hiatt Franck leads the Pirate Swabs in understanding the
Stronghold challenge and tactics to build the best robot to perform the tasks of
overcoming changing obstacles to enter the opposing side’s territory. Once inside, the
robot has to “throw” a “boulder” at the Tower goal to reduce its strength. Once the
alliance of the three robots reduces the Tower strength of the opposite team, they can
capture the Tower and win.
This all sounds reasonably simple if it was played on a simulated computer game. The
extraordinary challenge of taking a kit of parts and turning it into a functional, even
competitive, robot is the exciting task these Pirates are engaged in. All high school
age students are welcome to participate. Additionally, because this is a 6th -12th grade
school, the team offers middle level students the unique opportunity of participating in
this high school level ‘sport of the mind’.
Mentor Mike Mussler, Ben Nichol
Hiatt franck
Mentor Nancy Gerecht / student James MCoy
Hakan chuton
Mentor Doug Gerecht, /student James MCoy
Mentors: Randy Franck and Dustin Larsen students: James MCoy, Hiatt Franck