Our final Commack FEC event was what we called the "Robotics Contest" which took place in the
beginning of June. The students who took the advanced robotics class in school were eligible to compete in the contest. Students competing were given time in
class to work on their robots as well as afterschool and during free periods. Many students stayed hours and hours after school each day just to work
on and improve their robots.
June
4th, 2012 was the big day. This was the day of the contest. Commack FEC prepared well in advance for the upcoming night to make sure this years competition would be the best. Videos from past robotics contests as well as videos of some of the robots competing were on the school news a few weeks in advance to the contest in order to inform and excite the kids on the upcoming event. The week before the contest, students who built robots were able to show off their robots and how they work every morning in the arena set up in the lobby before school started. On the actual day of the contest, students reported right after school to help prepare for the contest. Students built the arena while others put finishing touches on their robots and helped gather materials and set up as well.
The arena, which was set up in the school cafeteria, was large and rectangular which was made out of wood. (24 feet by 16 feet). The arena was separated into two sides, one for each of the two robots competing at a time. The whole idea of the contest was to see which robot could collect the most golf balls. On each side of the arena, there was a tube attached to a tunnel where the ball would be inserted and roll out afterwards. When a ball was put into the tube, sensors would sense the number of balls to calculate the score. However, on each half of the arena, there was a trough which made getting golf balls in more efficient. The negative of using the trough was that each golf ball that was put in counted as less points as opposed to using the tube which scored more points. The robot that had the most points was the winner of that competition. Eventually, more and more robots were eliminated if they lost their match leaving us with two final robots to battle it out for first place.
This night was a very exciting one in Commack. The preparations and advertising for the event definitely made this year's robotics contest a big and popular one. The cheering of the crowd, food, and the music from the DJ made everything more exciting. The most exciting part of the contest came when it was down to the battle of the final two robots. The first group consisted of Anthony Pensiero, Wendell Kury, and Joe Sparacino. The second group was Justin Shulman, Omaid Halimi, and Joe Russo.With a very nerve-wracking, yet exciting, final competition, the first group (Anthony, Wendell, and Joe's group) came in first place winning the whole competition.
Below is the link to our Robotics Contest video as well as pictures:
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Scoring System
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The final two robots battling it out
Thanks for reading! Hope you found the Robotics Contest to be interesting and exciting! Check out all the videos on our youtube channel as well as future blogs!
~Ashley
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