Focus on finals

One hundred middle school teams advance to the robotics state finals.

Jay County has three of them.

A trio of Jay County Robotics middle school teams as well as one high school duo will compete Saturday at the Indiana VEX Robotics State Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

“I am incredibly proud of our teams this season,” said coach Kyle Love. “We have had a highly competitive year, with great results.”

At the state finals, the teams will compete using the same “game” as they have all year.

For the middle schoolers, that involves robots moving hubs to designated areas. There are also bonus points for other skills, such as suspending their robot from a bar at the end of the minute-long period.

The high school game, which has a two-minute period, is more in depth and involves turning flags and flipping “caps” to the team’s designated color.

Teams can also get points by having their robots climb onto platforms before the final buzzer.

A preliminary round Saturday will narrow the field, with top teams and winners of special awards earning berths to the VEX World Championship April 24 through May 1 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Ryne Goldsworthy, who is part of middle school team 1193B along with George Weesner and Ben Heath, and Makayla Templeton, who works with Aidan Garlinger on high school team 1193Z, both said they’re looking forward not only to the opportunity to advance to the world competition but also to seeing the level of competition Indiana has to offer.

“We know a lot of the teams we are competing against,” said Templeton, who has been to the state finals every year she has been involved in Jay County Robotics. “It’s really fun … and we’re all very competitive. … It’s a really good opportunity.” 

“It’s a cool opportunity to be able to meet new people from around Indiana and see how good the robot competition is,” added Goldsworthy.

Weesner, Heath and Goldsworthy were the first Jay County group to earn a state spot this year as they took first place Nov. 3 at the Lewis Cass VEX Robotics Competition.

Two teams added their names to the list Jan. 26 at the Liberty Patriot VEX IQ State Qualifier. Team 1193M (Landon Weaver, Jaiden Watson and Zan Bradshaw) matched team 1193B with the top score at the event to pick up its spot, and team 1193C (Austyn LeMaster, Kayliegh Brooks and Brayden Bradshaw) had the next highest score to also notch a state berth.

A couple of weeks later while in competition at East Jay Middle School, Templeton and Garlinger won the Excellence Award to send themselves to the state finals as well.

Love said the success this year has been all about the students.

“We’ve got a lot of motivated, driven kids,” he said. “I’ve changed my approach. I’ve tried to put less stress on it and really kind of let them go.

“It’s really student driven now.

“We’re letting them take ownership in the program.”

Put simply, the students are in control. During a typical practice — the team works two hours a night, two nights a week during the season — the teams are working on their robots on their own. The coaches are there to answer questions and offer advice, when needed.

All teams have the same selection of parts from which to choose to build their robots. The metal and plastic parts can be altered, but the motors cannot.

A lot of the work is trial and error.

For Templeton and Garlinger, the robot design has been basically the same all year. It uses a punch lever as opposed to a wheeled shooter (think pitching machine) to launch plastic balls at the flags, which Love said is a unique design. Their work has been in making small modifications and working together to figure out whose driving skills are best suited to each situation.

“The last few months we’ve had to make a couple of modifications due to our new motor and new system,” said Templeton. “It’s been minor things like changing the size of spaces in between motors and then re-chaining our drive.”

Goldsworthy noted that his team’s robot was too slow at the opening tournament. The group made adjustments for their second tournament, getting much-improved speed but a lack of control over the hubs. That led to more tweaking to fine-tune the robot so that it offered the right combination of speed and dexterity.

It’s those constant efforts that Love said have been key to success this year.

“We have kids that aren’t afraid to try,” he said. “And if it fails, instead of getting bummed out, they say, ‘Why did that not work?’ And they figure it out.

“It’s been a real joy this year to have a lot of motivated kids, a lot of positive attitudes. It makes it fun when you come in and everybody’s working and everybody’s learning.”