M-SET preparing to start season for smaller robotics competition

Starting in 2012, the Mechanical Science and Engineering team (M-SET), better known as the robotics club, started to compete in a smaller robotics competition known as the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) that occurs in the fall as well as their normal larger robotics competition, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), which takes place in January.

M-SET currently has three FIRST Tech Challenge teams, team 6165 The Cuttlefish, 7641 The Betta Fish and 7390 The Jellyfish. Each team works on small 18-inch cubed robots to play in the annual competition which is announced in the second week of September.

The three teams traveled to Valley Christian High School on Sept. 12 to learn about this year’s challenge, called Res-Q.

Res-Q involves programming robots to put round balls and yellow blocks into scoring zones as well as placing plastic figurines into designated safety buckets. There are three distinct phases to the game. The first 30 seconds make up the autonomous period where preprogrammed instructions guide the robots to do various tasks.

The next 90 seconds are devoted to a teleoperated period before the last 30 seconds, which are reserved for the end of the game.

During the autonomous-controlled period, teams can preload two plastic figurines and then drive to the safety buckets located on either side of the field and place the figurines in the correctly lit section of the bucket. Teams can also earn points by driving to the scoring zone or driving onto a metal structure located at both corners of the field.

During the teleoperated period, teams can use their time to score points by placing debris in the scoring zone, or climbing the metal structure and releasing figurines to zipline into the safety bucket.

In the final 30 seconds, robotics can climb up the entire structure and turn a flag from the neutral position 45 degrees to earn additional points.

“I think it'll be a great challenge for both veteran and rookie teams,” veteran FTC member Simrun Buttar said. “There's a lot of options on how to tackle the challenge and it'll be interesting to see how different teams tackle it.”

Along with a new FTC challenge this year, the club has also gained a new mentor: Computer Science and Digital Photography teacher Judi Heher.

“We are very fortunate to have her,” club president Kabir Manghnani said. “She has a particular skill set such as coding that we need in the club.”

Heher acts as the head mentor for all three teams, and with her on board the team feels confident that the FTC team members will have a skilled leader to lean on.

“It is pretty neat to have a dedicated mentor for the three teams,” junior FTC officer Lesley Huang said. “Usually we rely on parents to volunteer their time, but now we have someone who will be here throughout the season to help us.”