Robotics teams take ‘Rebound Rumble’
on the road for next round of competition

By Tammy Lane

Fayette County Public Schools

In a variation of March Madness, the Fayette County Public Schools’ High School Robotics Team will take its best game to Knoxville for the 2012 FIRST* Robotics Competition.

Members recently showed off their “Rebound Rumble” robot at the districtwide STEM Fair; now they’ll play on the road in the March 1-3 regional.

“Our shooting mechanism will have auto-aiming. Hopefully it will be really accurate,” said Danielle Scott, a senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.

In “Rebound Rumble,” a driver controls the robot from a distance as its camera eye homes in on a backboard’s reflective-tape target. Two alliances of three teams each face off in two-and-a-half-minute games, trying to score as many baskets as possible at hoops of varying heights and positions.

As teams are eliminated, the students form other alliances based on the groups’ strengths and prospects for success. “It’s really cool meeting other people and seeing how their strategies work,” Danielle added.

The FCPS team is made up of about two dozen students from Dunbar, Henry Clay and Lafayette high schools. Last month they received a parts kit with motors, batteries, a control system, a PC and a mix of automation components – but no instructions. Working with adult mentors, the students have had six weeks to design, build, program and test their robots to meet the engineering challenge.

“The first couple of weeks in the build season are planning and prototyping,” explained Kirk Hardy, a Lafayette junior.

“It’s better to get a plan and know it works,” noted Danielle, who recalled some frustrations the previous time out when the team ran into technical roadblocks and ran short of time.

This year’s team divided into small groups to tackle different tasks simultaneously. For instance, one designed the control mechanism while another put together the sections that actually shoot the basketballs. Among the challenges were time management and motivation while working long hours after school and on weekends. Toward the end, the students pooled their efforts to pull it all together in one impressive robot.

“It helps me learn a lot about leadership and communication when working in a group. What we do in robotics can be applied to anything,” said Danielle, who wants to study biology and environmental science in college.

The “Rebound Rumble” competition will measure the power of collaboration, a robot’s effectiveness and the students’ determination, and the FCPS team is poised to send its contender into the Southeast fray – hoping to advance to the April championship round in St. Louis.

“Although the team is officially led by some great FCPS teachers and staff (Melanie Timmers, Kayla Hill and Jim Adams), the students are definitely taking control of their learning and work. This is a major project, and the team is lucky to have several volunteer engineers, parents and other community members who are helping support their efforts,” said Amy Johns, coordinator of instructional technology for Fayette County Public Schools.

“One of the perks of my position is getting the opportunity to visit schools and see some pretty amazing projects taking place both in and outside of the classroom. What I really love the most is when I see the evidence of kids really using their brains, and that usually happens when the adults get out of the way! It doesn’t mean the adults aren’t directing the learning, but they are spending a lot of time and effort to create projects and problems for students and then letting the students work through it.  Now that is some powerful learning!”

Did you know?

* FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”