Wave Robotics ‘crescendos’ into new season of STEM warfare

A “crescendo” can lift the heartbeat, fire the adrenaline, and push people to action. This theme, recently released by FIRST [For Inspiration and and Recognition of Science and Technology], sent the Wave Robotics team into gear on Saturday, January 6 during a marathon, 13-hour session at Oshkosh North.

Wave, a collaborative STEM activity designed around robotic design and community outreach, offers unique and creative challenges, according to science department chair and Wave advisor Sara Dobish.

“I’m excited for the upcoming season, ‘Crescendo,’” she said. “I think that the game looks really exciting and has some difficult elements that are going to be really fun and challenging to create a robot that will be able to do the tasks it’s asked to do.”

Senior Team Lead Isabelle Polishinski is already gearing up for battle.

“I am excited to see how other teams handle the game, as well as to see how our robot progresses,” she said.

Wave is part of the FIRST Robotics Competition, or FRC. FIRST, a program based around STEAM, has programs for every age group, from four to 18. FRC teams compete at regionals in order to qualify for further competitions, and can win awards along the way for teams, mentors, and students.

Since the team’s creation in 2008, Wave has proven extremely successful, traveling to championships several times, as well as winning awards at nearly every competition they have attended.

As well as competing, the team also does a lot of community outreach events. Kickoff is only the start of the build season, where students have only six weeks to design, build, program, and test a 125-pound robot that is competition ready by mid-February.

Senior Team Lead Ben Grill understands the importance of kickoff.

“Kickoff is the most important day of our entire season,” he said. “We have a team meeting with just the students, we take team photos, and then watch the livestream where our season is released.”

Grill is ready for this season’s action-packed game.

“Crescendo requires us to place game pieces, called notes, into different levels.”

Grill appreciates the process the team goes through at kickoff, one that ensures everyone gets the opportunity to contribute ideas.

“After seeing the challenge, the team breaks away into small groups to brainstorm possible robot strategy and design, and then prototype for the rest of the week,” he said.

This season, the team looked at many different robots from 2013, which had a similar game to this season’s, but instead of foam rings, the game pieces were frisbees.

Polishinski sees her position as a team lead, one of many leadership spots open to students.

“My role is to not only take part in kickoff, but to make sure the team is functioning to its full potential by reminding the team of behavior expectations and keeping the team on task,” she said.

The team leads also aid in the reading of the game manual, a set of game and robot rules that change every year. These rules are important to know because broken rules will lead to fouls, just like other sports.

The first step in the process is designing the robot with the help of the Computer Aided Design, or CAD subteam, according to CAD subteam lead junior Kevin Bal.

“CAD designs the robot on a computer before we start manufacturing it,” he said, “so that we have a better idea of what to manufacture.”

Bal appears optimistic of the team’s ability this season.

“I like the game, it’s very interesting, and I think that we will do very well because there are multiple aspects of the game,” he said. “I think we can do them all really effectively.”

Without a design in mind, manufacturing wouldn’t know how the parts work together as a whole until the robot is fully put together, so they would just be hoping for the best.

Next, the manufacturing subteam builds the robot that CAD designed, according to Polishinski, also the manufacturing subteam lead.

“Once CAD is done creating a part, they send it to manufacturing to be fabricated with the various tools at our facility,” she said.

Some of the common tools the team uses in Oshkosh North’s metal and wood shops include a CNC router, CNC lathe, CNC mill, plasma cutter, welding tools, tree mill, lathes, and drill presses. CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control, and means that the tool is preprogrammed by a computer to make very precise parts.

Polishinski appreciates another, even more technical, aspect to her subteam.

“Manufacturing members either go in CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) to create the code needed to cut a part on the CNC, or just follow the standard steps, then go and assemble it,” she said. “Then it’s ready to be wired and coded.”

After manufacturing assembles the parts, the robot is sent to the systems and software subteams, led by Grill.

“There is a whole aspect of the robot that requires wiring, and programming to make it move, which is something people overlook,” he said.

The team uses Java to program the robot in Tele-op, the part of the game controlled by a driver and operator, for the autonomous period at the beginning of each match where the robot is run completely on a preprogrammed set of instructions.

Other subteams include marketing, impact, and scouting. Junior Hannah Dobish, a marketing student, focuses on promotion.

“Marketing runs the team image,” she said. “We design shirts and buttons, and we run the website and social media.”

For marketing, the first few weeks after kickoff are the busiest, as they only have a week before the team votes on t-shirt mock-ups. Less than three weeks are available before the final t-shirt design has to be sent off to be screen-printed.

Sophomore Henry Bongers, a member of the impact subteam, spearheads community outreach.

“Impact is the subteam that hosts a variety of community events in the regular season and in the offseason, and at competitions a group of three students present to a judge on the team’s impact in the community,” he said.

The subteam is responsible for writing the impact essay and creating a video that showcases their efforts in the community, which is then judged as part of the competition. The winning team at regionals automatically qualify for championships, regardless of how good the robot is, making it an extremely prestigious award to win.

Scouting is led by junior Alex Dobish.

“Scouting watches the other robots and learns about them in matches,” he said. “When it comes time for alliance selection, the team will know who to pick to get the highest possible score, as well as predicting the other alliances.”

After the qualifying matches, the top teams pick two other teams to be in their alliance. During qualification matches, alliances are randomized, giving teams the opportunity to work with a number of different teams. These matches also reward teams with ranking points, which evaluate the teams for alliance selection.

WAVE travels to two regionals and a scrimmage every year, typically one in-state and one out of state. This year, the team is traveling to a scrimmage in Sussex on February 18, called a week-zero event, to test out their new robot.

The first regional for this year will be the Central Illinois Regional in Peoria, a week-three event taking place March 14-16. The second regional will take place at the Seven Rivers Regional in La Crosse, a week-six event on April 4-6.

Grill stresses the tight schedule before competition.

“The six weeks leading up to competition is grind time because we have to build an entire robot from scratch,” he said.

The team welcomes many new students each year, and among those this year are freshmen Angad Behl and Soren Larson. Behl has been programming for eight years before joining the team.

“I’m excited to be furthering my programming skills and learning how to work with hardware, specifically when it comes to robots, and not just software,” he said.

Larson agrees with Behl.

“I’m excited to go to the events and see all our hard work pay off,” he said.

Larson’s inexperience hasn’t interfered with his newfound family bond.

“Being a new student on the team is a little confusing at times,” he said, “but people are really nice and everyone’s helpful, so I never feel really overwhelmed.”

by Jorie Mugerauer

Published January 29 2024

Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue IV