Robotics teams battle it out for top honors at county fair
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on October 8, 2014 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Emily Flynn, 15, and Katherine Brozovsky, 14, make adjustments to their team's cardboard robot during construction time for the Robox Sumo Competition held Saturday at the Wayne Regional Agricultural Fair. Miss Brozovsky was assisting the team as a representative of the Roto Raptors 4-H robotics club.
Homemade robots battled it out in the ring last week at the Wayne Regional Agricultural Fair as some talented teenagers used their ingenuity to come up with machines that could operate under their own power -- an create a little havoc in the process.
It was the first time the event has been held at the fair, and it proved to be a crowd pleaser.
Each team was given a 2-by-2 feet piece of cardboard and two kits. One contained a wire harness with two motors, two wheels, a ping pong ball, 5 1/2 feet of foil tape, 10 zip ties and a sheet of paper. Another had a utility knife, scissors, ruler, pencil, Sharpie and cut-resistant gloves.
"They were given two hours to make their robot," said Anne Finch said, a leader of the 4-H Club, which sponsored the competition. "They talked about it and came up with their design themselves. The only requirement was that the finished robot had to fit into a 12-by-12-inch square."
Six teams competed in the sumo-style event. In the finale, two robots, built by teams named Over 9000 and the Peanut Society battled it out in a 5-by-5-foot ring for the title. They had one minute to try to push the other robot out of the ring. At the end of a minute, if both were still in the ring, the lighter robot won by default.
When the competition started, the small Peanut Society robot first pushed the larger Over 9000 robot around the ring. Then Peanut Society pushed Over 9000 just a bit out of the arena, and the crowd went wild.
Then, Over 9000 turned things around and began pushing Peanut Society all around. More cheers from the crowd. Then there was a stalemate in the middle of the arena, with each robot pushing its hardest again the other, wheels spinning and spinning. All of a sudden, Peanut Society gained momentum and pushed Over 9000 a bit out of the ring again. But then, a second stalemate ensued. Time was finally called and Peanut Society won by default, being the smaller of the two robots.
The match was not only exciting, it was nerve-wracking for the team members.
"There were some scary moments in the matches," said Peanut Society member Carlos Lujano Lopez, 13. "I thought our robot was going to fall apart. We were scared going up against some of the bigger robots."
One of the scariest moments for team member Jose Lujano Lopez, 14, was when the robot didn't move for a bit.
"The other team had a chance to take us out and eliminate us," he said. "But we just moved the joystick and moved our robot around."
Jose and his teammates, Carlos and David Gamez Lujano, 13, made their robot square in design with a little ramp in the front so they could get under their opponents' robots and prohibit them from moving.
Coming in second was the team of Robo Guys -- Jeff Bland, 13, Drew Grice, 14, and Charlie Dees, 13.
"We picked our team name because we're building a robot and we're all guys," Charlie said jokingly.
Jeff is the only one of the three who has built a robot before, although it was a working LEGO robot.
Over 9000 team members Merrick David, 18, Emily Flynn, 15, and Aaron Mirando, 13, just started throwing stuff on their robot to come up with a design.
"We were pleased with it and we had a lot of fun doing it," Merrick said.
"At the beginning of making it, we had to change some things around because it didn't work," Aaron added.