Sheffield — The Mt. Everett Regional High School robotics team is on a bus headed for the FIRST Tech World Championships in St. Louis after winning their third state championship last month at the finals in Scranton, Penn. The team will compete with 128 other teams, 28 of them international, from April 22-24.
But Team 3085 — nicknamed “Higgs Bots” — could not leave until six of their nine members got off a red-eye from Los Angeles, where they had gone for a national music competition (which Mt. Everett excelled at, by the way). The Sheffield Police and Fire Departments ceremoniously escorted the team and their robot off the school campus.
On a recent Friday evening, the team gathered in their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) classroom to sign thank you notes for the outpouring of financial support for the trip. The team raised $15,000, said mentor Chris Thompson, even though they only needed $7,000.
But the money rolled in faster than they could stop it, said Superintendent David Hastings last week. The donations, he added, included a hefty personal check from Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox), which warmed hearts across the Southern Berkshire countryside as the word spread.
The robotics program will need those leftover funds, Thompson said, especially since they will have two teams next year, both a junior varsity for freshman and sophomores, and varsity for juniors and seniors.
Mentor Paul O’Brien was there, making photocopies of FIRST Tech paperwork to pass out to team members. He said FIRST Tech officials had safety on their minds, and planned curfews for the students, in addition to an increase in police presence downtown during the championship. “There will be thousands of kids there,” O’Brien said.
Team members were also instructed about how to dress around robots: “no sandals or open-toed shoes…”
FIRST Tech competitions, known as “Varsity Sport for the Mind,” requires teams to build a robot from scratch quickly and within a framework of uniform size and task criteria, but without directions. For this year’s competition the team programmed their robot to pick up balls that are worth points when dropped into different plastic tubes. In the process the robot must perform various tasks in a regulation size arena. The teams start competing in the fall, and assess and adjust their robot after each competition.
The team had to make a few changes to the robot since the state finals, during which there were a few sticky moments that required repairs and assessments.
“We build a mechanism to drop the small ball,” said senior Ben Webb, the team’s head engineer, pointing to a metal catch that will now release the balls one at a time. Before, it would drop two balls at once, he said, interfering with their ability to score points.
The other modification, Webb said, was the addition of two little wheels that take hold of the plastic tubes of different sizes into which the balls will be dropped – a “goal grabber.”
“These small changes will make a pretty big difference,” he added.
There were also coding changes that programmed the robot to know the number of revolutions it makes by “number instead of time,” Webb said. The robot, said senior and programmer Alex Dunn, “now knows how many times the wheels turn so we can accurately calculate how far it needs to go. Before, we had a timer.”
Senior Kosta Casivant, main driver and co-captain, said he knew there would be “a lot of other teams better than us” in St. Louis, but added that Mt. Everett is “consistent and compatible,” and that the team’s drivers and coaches in the field are “experienced.”
“We need some luck,” he noted. “We have made mistakes but we’ve learned what to do or not to do. We’ll go out there and do our best. Winning is nice, but it’s also about making connections and having fun as a team.”
Could it be that we have before us a competition without nerves or cut-throat mentality?
Driver Jake Christinat said he’s “excited because we’ve worked so hard. I’m not expecting to win, but to enjoy the experience and travel…the teams are all supportive of each other.”
Phyllis Webb is Ben Webb’s mother. She’ll be going to St. Louis with team, along with Kosta’s father, mentor Marvin Casivant. Phyllis Webb is excited about robotics and the competitions, on so many levels. “Our mentors are magic,” Webb said. “We are so lucky.”
“This isn’t just about STEM or science or math,” she added. “These are life skills.”
The competitions will be live streamed. For more information, go to championship.usfirst.org.
