MFHS robotics team learns from mistakes

By Emily Hilley-Sierzchula

The three-person robotics team from Marble Falls High School, Team 4769, finished in the middle of the pack at the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Challenge regional contest Saturday, Jan. 31, in San Antonio.

To their teacher, however, what his students learned is more important than hauling away trophies and awards.

“They had a good time,” said MFHS engineering teacher Randy Guffey Tuesday, Feb. 10. “They all left the contest feeling good about what they’d done and learned, both from their own experiences and by observing other groups.”

Guffey said previously he was hoping students would be challenged by difficulties, and they were.

During an autonomous portion of the contest, in which the robot had to run entirely on students’ programming instead of being controlled manually, a programming glitch caused problems.

“Instead of rising a few inches like it was programmed, the arm swung back and hit the side of the arena, breaking the claw,” he said. The claw was engineered to pick up different sized balls for the “Cascade Effect” challenge. It was made with the school’s 3D printer and strengthened with aircraft-grade epoxy.

Students had to improvise and adapt: two skills professional engineers use every day on the job.

Students did not have as much time to re-program their robot as they normally would have because scheduling was crunched, Guffey explained.

“They couldn’t quite get [the repair] completed, but I was proud of how they tried to fix the situation using cardboard and duct tape to extend and repair the claw,” Guffey said.

Team leader Marshall Jett, MFHS senior, said the inability to fix the problem forced them to change their scoring strategy. Instead of moving balls around, the team scored points by moving the goals around, he said.

The team was not able to score as many points that way, though.

“They did a good job improvising,” Guffey said.

Next year, the challenge will be different; it is a mystery until FIRST releases the information.

Guffey said next year’s team, which will be led by junior Liam Baskin, will likely spend more time troubleshooting for the autonomous portion of the contest.

“They’ll try to think through scenarios of all the different things that could happen,” Guffey said.

Baskin did most of the programming this year and Guffey said that might give the team an edge. “[Baskin] knows what he did, what went wrong, and I think he’ll make sure to get started earlier,” he said.