43
Photo
Neighbors | Jessica Harker .The Austintown's robotics team's FIRST Tech Challenge tournament, the first tournament of the robotics season in Ohio, took place on Dec. 1 at Austintown Middle School.
Photo
Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Members of the Austintown robotics team prepared for the first competition of the season on Dec. 1.
Photo
Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Austintown's robotics tournament was space-themed, titled "Rover Ruckus," where robots were created to carry plastic balls and cubes and place them in a container in the center of the field.
Photo
Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Members of the Austintown robotics team prepared for the first tournament of the year Dec. 1, hosted at Austintown Middle School.
By JESSICA HARKER
Austintown hosted a FIRST Tech Challenge robotics tournament on Dec. 1 at Austintown Middle School.
Head coach of the team Andy Yantes said that this is the second year the tournament has been hosted by Austintown.
“This is an actual regional tournament this one people can advance to the state tournament and then the world tournament,” Yantes said.
Austintown’s team consists of a team of 22 eighth- to ninth-graders.
Twenty-four additional teams from across the state of Ohio traveled to Austintown to compete.
Yantes said that beginning in September everyone around the country is given a game to design their robot to compete in.
This year was space themed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 2019.
“For FTC its Rover Ruckus,” Yantes said. “They have a lander that sits in the middle of the field and they have to collect minerals and put them in the appropriate spot on the lander.”
The minerals in the competition are plastic cubes and balls that the robots are designed to pick up and place in the appropriate spots.
Yantes said many of the teams competing against Austintown during the tournament were made up of high school students from other schools.
This is because Austintown is one of the only schools with an ongoing robotics program from kindergarten through senior year of high school.
Yantes started a Lego league for elementary school students six years ago. Children in those grades use Legos to create less advanced robots that, according to Yantes, they will display later this year.
The FIRST Tech Challenge tournament was designed as a transitional level for students to move from creating Lego robots to more advanced robots as they get older.
“It’s really exciting seeing the kids grow up. I have seen these guys since they were in sixth grade and now they are seniors,” Yantes said.
During the tournament competing teams will break into alliances and rack up points based on how many minerals they are able to properly place during allotted times.
Along with students who control and build the robots, Yantes said there are a variety of other jobs students are judged off of.
“As with anything the whole concept of robotics is to teach them the different skills. The big one is we want kids to be excited about engineering and STEM based things, but there are different groups,” Yantes said.
He explained that a group of students works on an engineering notebook, which outlines the groups progress in designing and building the robot.
These students will get judged on their presentation of the notebook.
“There’s also a marketing piece to that and it teaches to them about business plans,” Yantes said.
Robotics also includes a community service piece, with students from the high school coaching elementary school students and volunteering at the tournament.
“Part of our community service and a big piece of what we do is us hosting it. They also do other community service projects throughout the year,” Yantes said. “It’s not just ‘I want to build a robot.’ It can be anything.”