WEATHER
Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend — as I did last year — the annual Botball competitions at Santa Clara University near San Jose, Calif.
Fortunately, good friends on the Peninsula High School team kept me advised.
One of them is our grandson, Key Peninsula Middle School eighth-grader Cameron McMillan, who wrote: “PHS is proud to be the first school in the Northwest to have a Botball team.”
My grandson explained that Botball is a robotics competition that is sponsored by the KISS institute for practical robotics.
“While participating in this competition, students have a chance to construct their own robots from Legos and assorted metal parts,” he said. “All robots in this competition are autonomous, because ‘real robots don’t need remote control.’ ”
This is the second year that PHS has had a robotics team. Current team members agree they did much better this year.
“It was a bright and sunny day in Santa Clara when the Northwest’s only Botball robotics team competed against 26 other teams from northern California,” coach Sheri Ahlheim said.
PHS was represented by four students, their coach and two parent chaperones. Botball competitions are designed to test students’ engineering, building, programming, math and documentation skills.
PHS’ team was up against stiff competition, among which was the team that placed second in last year’s international competition.
“It gives me experience for my career field, computer engineering, and it’s fun,” said team programmer Bryan Humlie. “This year we really wanted to bring home the 3-foot-tall trophy!”
Being the only Northwest team means the Peninsula students must go to California to compete. Ahlheim is trying to raise support for the team, since most of its current members are graduating this year.
“If the team doesn’t get more members soon, it will not be able to continue next year, which would be tragic,” Ahlheim said. “I know it’s a lot of hours outside of school, but it’s such a great opportunity for the kids to explore something different. This activity is not district-funded and needs funding.”
Team members agreed it would help to start more teams.
“This could possibly start a league here,” they said, “saving hundreds of dollars in travel costs.”
Right now, all of the travel costs come out of team members’ pockets and fundraisers.
It takes six teams to start a new region.
Botball is not a cheap activity: It costs $2,500 to register a team.
Fortunately, Ahlheim arranged a partial scholarship from the KISS Institute to help defray entry costs for this year and received a generous contribution form the PHS Boosters to cover the rest of the fee.
In an effort to create a separate Botball Pacific Northwest region, Ahlheim is attempting to expand the program to have the Peninsula School District field a team for next year’s competitive season. Some students at Gig Harbor High and KPMS have expressed interest.
Having a Botball league in the Seattle-Tacoma area with PHS hosting the event would be a prestigious accomplishment.
“Team members Bryan Humlie and Austin Cluff spent the day tinkering and reprogramming their robots between rounds, then watching to see if their adjustments made any improvements,” Ahlheim said. “After their robots’ elimination, they walked around and helped some teams and learned from others.
“In the meantime, team members Joel Overly and Cameron McMillan prepped and gave a speech about the team, its strategy, and the evolution of the design and programming of the robots.”
The contest has three parts, three seeding rounds, a double-elimination bracket and a documentation component. The Seahawks placed sixth in Documentation, ninth in seeding and 13th in double elimination, giving them 11th out of 27 overall.
Last year, their first in competition, they placed 12th out of 22 teams.
Two Judges’ Choice awards were given to the team — Best Sportsmanship and Best Presentation.
That’s tops out of 27 competing teams. Not too shabby, particularly considering our kids were there for only the second time and were competing with teams with years of experience, many of which are well-financed by their schools.
“Not only did they place first among teams from the Northwest, but their point total set a record for Northwest teams,” said parent chaperone Mike Rootvik, with only a little bit of tongue-in-cheek.
At the evening’s celebratory dinner at Chili’s, the boys discussed how they will do things next year and what they will try to accomplish for the rest of the year.
They want to test several improvements on their designs and they’d like to attract more students to join the team, especially girls.
In a few weeks, they will offer programming classes in hopes of finding replacements for graduating members Humlie and Overly, both of whom will be sorely missed.
Both have promised to support next year’s team with advice, no matter where they are.
Humlie is going to an engineering college in Milwaukee, Wisc., and Overly is still weighing his options.
“The kids are just amazing,” Ahlheim said. “They have learned so much about everything, from sensors and programming, to strategy and team work. Next year, I’d like to run two teams from PHS and eventually drum up enough interest to have our own Northwest Region.”
Interested in helping? Call Ahlheim at 253-884-5667.
Print
E-Mail