Photo Illustration by Matt Clark l Special to VOXf

By Matt Clark
Special to VOX

If you had a chance to build your own robot, what would you make it do? Perhaps you would make it do your chores or clean your room or do your math homework. You could make it do something really useful like assist with a surgery or rescue someone from a dangerous situation. The last two are some of the ways robots are currently being used. I think robots are fascinating and will be even more useful in the future. Someone has to build these robots, and I would like to give it a try. You might think robots are too complicated and only fun for geeks, but that is definitely not the case.

If you enjoy challenges and like team activities, you would enjoy being part of a robotics team. This isn’t an ordinary team sport. It’s a sport for the mind! At first I thought this would be extremely hard, but I learned by taking the work one step at a time that it was also do-able. Problem-solving is like eating a pizza. You can’t eat the whole thing in one bite, but you can finish it eventually, piece by piece. I have become a stronger person by developing skills such as teamwork, time management, commitment, perseverance and handling pressure.

My First Robot Experience
I had my first experience with robots last summer when I attended a robotics camp at Georgia Tech. I learned how to build and program the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot, a shoebox-sized machine made from special Lego pieces. It’s not remote-controlled, so everything must be programmed.

After everyone learned how to use the NXT, we decided to have a Robot Wars competition. That’s where one robot runs into the other robot and tries to tip it over. This is a test of who has built the best robot and programming skills. The experience made me realize how much I enjoyed using my robot to compete against others’. The NXT happens to be the robot used in FIRST Lego League (FLL) competitions for middle school students.

Science & Technology Can Be Fun
FLL was created through a partnership between the Lego Group and Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway two-wheeled personal transporter and founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). FLL inspires students to discover that science and technology can be fun. After a week of playing with robots at camp, I found that I wanted to take what I learned to the next level. I decided to join an FLL robotics team. A lot of schools have teams, or you can form your own team with your friends.

My team, Megahertz, consists of five homeschoolers. I am the main programmer for my team. As a programmer, I write computer programs using the programming language that comes with the NXT kit. I basicly tell the robot what to do. For example, if I want the robot to go forward six inches and then turn left, I have to put that into terms the robot understands. As a team, we decide what we want the robot to do. This was hard at first, because everyone wanted to do things their own way, but our coach taught us to respect each others’ opinions and work together to find the best solutions. Afterward, I would transfer our ideas into programming language. This was time-consuming and frustrating at times because it was a lot of trial and error, but I improved.

An FLL competition consists of four parts. In the first part, the robot faces a set of challenges, such as moving objects and hitting targets within a two-and-a-half minute time limit. It’s like running an obstacle course that requires a lot of thought and strategy. At first, it seems impossible to finish in time, so competing teams have to keep making changes in strategy, programming and even design to make the robot more efficient. We also had to figure out the quickest route to run the challenges for the competition. It took about three months to get it right. That’s a lot of work for a two-and-a-half minute performance, and it felt great to accomplish such a huge task!

For the second part of the competition, teams research an assigned topic and prepare a five-minute presentation for judges. Doing the research wasn’t that bad because we divided the work among the team members. The project was actually enjoyable, and I learned some interesting facts about wind power. For example, the world’s largest wind turbine, used to generate electricity, is in Hawaii and stands 20 stories tall with blades the length of a football field.

For the third part of the competition, we had to explain our robot design and programs to a group of technical judges. This part wasn’t anything for me to get nervous about, since I was very confident that the robot would work correctly. The judges also ask questions, and you have to explain some of the things you learned.

The fourth thing you are judged on is teamwork. This means judges walk around and observe you throughout the entire competition. One of the things they look for is team spirit. You have to keep a positive attitude. Good sportsmanship is very important, and in FLL you actually get graded on it.

Enjoying the Challenge and Winning
On Jan. 5, my team received first place in Robot Performance at the regional competition in Warner Robins, Ga. We also received the First Place Champion’s Award, which is best overall in the four categories, and advanced to the state competition at Georgia Tech. State was a lot different. For one, there were 49 teams instead of 12, with six teams running at a time. During the first round, the referees started the match before we were ready. They let us redo the round, but we were still shaken and did not notice one of our attachments had fallen out of place. The robot ran over it and missed all the targets after that, which caused us to lose points. I was very disappointed because I had worked so hard to get a perfect score, which the robot was very capable of doing. However, things improved in Technical Judging, and the judges seemed to be impressed with our robot.

Next we had Research Judging, which didn’t involve our robot. This was our chance to stand out. We did! We received the First Place Research Award out of all 49 teams! Just getting that award made it all worthwhile.

In the end, it turned out that we did very well, and our overall score put us in fifth place. Placing among the top five teams in the state is a huge accomplishment. I’m proud of what our team did, and I’m already thinking about next year’s robot design! Even though the next season hasn’t started yet, getting a head start never hurts.

I joined the team because I thought it would be fun and challenging, but the experience turned out to be a lot more. I hope you will try it and see for yourself. After all, working with robots is the hardest fun you’ll ever have!

Matt is an 8th grade homeschooler who enjoys playing the piano. He hopes to study engineering in the future.