Olivia Greeley & Sommyr Bass, Nederland.  We are part of The Pirates! Nederland High School’s FIRST Robotics Team 1584. Robotics is a team effort to engineer, design and build a working robot in six weeks to prepare for the FIRST Robotics Competition. This effort is a collaboration between mentors guiding students in mechanics, electronics, software and more. The robot consists of its chassis, working parts, a big battery which powers electronics and pneumatics, and C++ coded software to operate in competition. These are combined to build a functioning and competitive robot.

Our robot is named de Ballista; a type of catapult used in medieval times during a siege on a castle.

Being on the Nederland Robotics Team is fun. Students are welcome no matter their background or experience level. You take a lot away from the year in terms of how everything relates to each other, and an appreciation for how things work. Students have the opportunity to learn multiple skills throughout the season from working with tools, learning to programming, and media design. “I’ve learned to use power-tools to work with metal and build parts to incorporate into the robot.” says James McCoy, a mate who is in his first year of robotics. A powder-monkey, one of our middle-level mates, who is also part of the crew says, “I’ve learned to work with metal as well as design the flag and design the ‘bling’.” Bling is a trinket that each team gives out during competitions.

This year’s competition is called FIRST Stronghold. The goal of the game is to breach defenses and shoot balls into towers in an alliance of three robots. The defenses to breach include a drawbridge, moat (without water, of course), and rougher terrain. There are 5 categories of defenses, with a total of 9 different obstacles to overcome. The audience has the chance to choose one defense on the competition field at random times. Robots score by breaching the defenses, weakening the castles with boulders, and scaling the tower by climbing it.

The main goal for our team’s robot was to be able to breach the defenses efficiently and quickly, as well as score by shooting boulders into the tower. Our team strives to have and maintain gracious professionalism, which is when you are both competitive and respectful/helpful to other teams by sharing tools, designs, and code. This year has been both grueling and rewarding, which has allowed us to grow successfully and learn together.