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On Tuesday this week, the Owl braved the microburst/macrodeluge/crazyclimatechange to get an insider’s tour of the newly-opened Robotics Lab at Weston Middle School. After wading across a rapidly rising lake at the front of the school (10 points to me for leaving my Bogs water boots in the car that morning), the Owl was transported into the somewhat crashy-bangy-zippy world of Lego robotics (the Girl Up camp in progress) as well as meeting my all-time robot crush, 18754, or GNCE Carbon, perhaps, or just Carby for short. No, not really, just 18754, if you please. [You can use the search term “GNCE” on the Weston Owl page (www.westonowl.com) and find lots of past stories on the Galactic Narwhal Chicken Effect robotics team. They have an excellent PR team].

First things first. Club leader/mentor/explaintothelayperson-er Cary Gumbert introduced me to the three Girl Up Club members who were running the second week of their Girl Up Robotics camp. Originally envisioned as being for girls only, the 24 camp spots are in fact split evenly between boys and girls who were buzzing back and forth between the robots tables and their coding computers. Teams of two were working to fulfill certain coding/robot challenges–drive a black and white striped path, push down a lever, push up a lever, make a Lego person move, etc. Several teams demonstrated what they were doing and I must say it is really impressive what these kids learned in a week and a half.

Oh, oops I got ahead of myself here. The Middle School Robotics lab is pretty darned amazing. Split into work tables, then robot challenge tables (probably there is a more technical term but ummm, it’s me here) and then the dual-to-the-death Thunderdome area. Fine, it’s where the big robots take on their challenges and I’m getting to that.

First, a giant thanks to WEEFC (Weston Educational Enrichment Funding Committee), those who donated to the Middle School Robotics Lab and then I must add a special thanks to Cary Gumbert, who has worked tirelessly to bring attention to this amazing group of students and robots. And undoubtedly there are others who should be thanked so hey, you know who you are, or at least the robots do, and they also know where you live and will deliver your thank you note.

Back to Lego robotics. Here’s a video of one of the Lego robots made/programmed by two incoming sixth graders doing its thing. By the way, if this video doesn’t work for you, I cannot help. Call one of the robotics kids.

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So much fun. Two other students demonstrated their robots doing what they needed to do–one was successful, and one was a work in progress as it was complex task involving moving a ball up a ramp, getting a guillotine (?) to work, and then cooking dinner. Not the latter.

Middle schoolers are very impressive. I could have watched these little Lego robots all morning but it was time for the BIG SHOW at the Thunderdome (is that too 80s a reference? Sorry, kids, you literally missed Tina Turner, RIP). Mad Max (oh fine, 18754) was facing off against Diamond contender 22489, or if you will, The Blaster (seriously Thunderdome is a classic) in a fight-to-the-not-death duel of putting cones on poles. Everyone gathered around to these State-qualified robots do their thing.

Robotics challenges last two and a half minutes–in real life 30 seconds would be autonomous and 2 minutes would be human-steered. Today this was all human, and it was a great battle with an enthusiastic audience. It was pretty hard to decide whether to cheer for the Girl Up newbies or the amazing award-winning 18754. Oh, I forgot to mention that there was a bit of an intro about the robots, and how they were made, with 3D printing and a heavy 60-pound chassis. My personal favorite part of the intro was hearing that 18754’s design was based on Apple and Ferrari–beautiful curves, and hiding all the ugly mundane stuff inside out of sight. Cool.

Each robot had to pick up a cone in its corner, drive over to a pole (of varying heights and therefore points) and try to be the top cone when time is called to get the points. A third robot also was allowed to enter the fray because The Blaster (22489) was being driven by Girl Up high schoolers who were untrained drivers, while Mad Max (18754) was being driven by veteran GNCErs. The third robot was on defense–or rather, mess with Mad Max so he can’t get his cones. The third robot, sorry I am without a name…hummm…let’s call it the Gnat for just annoying Mad Max) was driven by one of the middle schoolers who I must say can probably outdrive me out on the streets.

Here’s a short video of the battle to the cones, with a cameo by the Gnat annoying Mad Max.

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After the battle, it turned out that the Girl Up team had won by one point, 30 to 29, but of course there was a challenge which was that the annoying Gnat deserved penalties for that team, and yes, that turned into a request for VAR (video assisted replay) which I was not going to get into. It was all good-humored, really. In the middle of the discussion, GNCE team members explained that in robotics, you never want to make an enemy of another team–you may be competing against them in one challenge, and then later that day find that you are paired with them against another two challengers. Can’t we all just be friends? Yes, we can.

GNCE will be hosting an event on September 9 that will involve robotics teams from all over the state coming to Weston for the announcement of the next FIRST Tech Challenge. More information on that is forthcoming and you know and I know that the Owl will be following the new season/team/competitions. Since the team graduated only one senior, it’s expected that this team will be coming back even stronger, and adding new students when the school year starts.

You can read more about FTC and the schedule for the season here: https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/game-and-season.

Thanks, Cary, GNCE and Girl Up for a tour of the new Robotics Lab/Thuderdome. I can hardly wait to come back for a visit later this year.

Go ‘cats! And galactic narwhal chickens!