DA Robotics Team Prepare for FIRST Championship and Soccer Bots Competition

In today’s tech-driven world, it is important that students are prepared for the future. Deerfield’s Robotics club is helping students do just that. Robotics has been a major club at Deerfield for many years; it is comprised of groups of students who build robots throughout the year, which they then use in competitions. The club is unique in that there is no rulebook or right answer—students are encouraged to forge their own solution through collaborative efforts. Pushing the bounds of creativity, Robotics Club challenges Deerfield students to think outside of the box and step outside their comfort zone.

One subsection of the club will be focusing on building robots to participate in FTC– FIRST Tech Challenge. FTC is a robotics competition in which students design, build, and operate robots to compete in head-to-head challenges. Tug Witt ‘18, one of the leaders of the club, explained the competition this year, saying, “The frames that we build are the same every year, but each year we add different add-ons. This year, a lot of it is based around picking up blocks, so what will be most challenging, and what we will probably spend the most time working on is the robot arm.” There are other aspects of FTC that the competing teams must consider, such as raising funds, designing and marketing their team brand, and doing community outreach for which they can win awards. Each season concludes with Super-Regional Championships and an impressive and animated FIRST Championship.

The rest of the team has been preparing for the Soccer Bots competition. For this competition, students build and program autonomous robots to play soccer with wiffle balls. The game will be held on a 12 ft × 12 ft field, complete with a small goal, and a center circle. The robots must not exceed 14.5 in × 14.5 in width, but have no height limitation. Mila Castleman ‘18, another leader of the club, said “Last year we made bigger robots, but we found that it was hard for many members, especially those new to robotics, to finish a robot and feel good about it, so this year we are making smaller robots so that everyone can do it.” The games will be played 2 vs 2, and each game will last two minutes.

Some of the students involved in this club are experienced, such as Mila, who has been a part of the club since her first year at Deerfield. For others, it is their first time being exposed to anything like this. Adrian Yao ‘20 said, “A lot of us are new to robotics, and things such as programming and coding, but we have already learned so much through the help of our leaders and mentors.” Regardless of experience, every team member has the same passion for robotics. Some like it because it is a sort of logic puzzle, and others like the aspect of working in a group. Though it can be difficult at times, all the members agree that robotics is one of the most important aspects of life. Ryan Welch ‘20 said, “I think [robotics] is the future...and might as well get started on it sooner than later.”