On April 7th at San Gabriel High School, Team Technobiotics of Mark Keppel’s robotics class placed first at the second annual AUSD Robotics Competition.
Teams were judged based on the robot’s overall design, its performance, and the scientific concepts that went into the building of the robot. Additionally, teams created a poster describing their robot’s dimensions, hook, and the schematics of their design. Team Technobiotics placed first in Robot Design and Robot Performance, which allowed them to place first overall.
Senior Joline Kwok says that her team “felt like the underdogs entering the competition because [it was] Keppel’s first year participating.”
The robot was expected to pick up Gatorade bottles representing people, and deliver them to an area on the map while avoiding obstacles. Upon delivery of the Gatorade bottles to the destination, the team was required to answer a math question correctly to complete the task.
Each round of the competition consisted of a two-minute autonomous run where robots navigated the course based on pre-programmed code, and a five-minute run where competitors manually controlled their robot through remotes. Technobiotics decided not to participate in the optional autonomous run. Kwok said, “We were wary about letting our robot drive on its own because it… can be inconsistent. One wrong bump or turn can result in a major loss of points.”
The team had a month of in-class time to prepare for the competition. Despite the brief period of preparation, Kwok did not feel that the lack of time was an obstacle, stating that, “Teamwork makes the dream work.”
