FIRST Robotics claims Team Sustainability during regional competition

Riding the tides of success, FIRST Robotics Competition team Wave Robotics swept up the Team Sustainability Award at the recent 2023 Northern Lights Regional in Duluth, Minnesota. On March 3, the team consisting of 8-12 students throughout Winnebago County competed against 60 teams from across the Midwest. 

Senior Hannah Chung, a team lead and member since 2014, knows her way around the competition. 

“Despite the namesake of robotics, we compete in two main regions at each FIRST competition--Robot and Impact,” she said. “On the technical side, teams compete in about eight different qualifying matches and match up alliances for a final. On the impact side, we focus on making differences in the community and STEM empowerment.”

Beyond just building robots, Chung advocates for the message and morals of the program.

“The core values of FIRST lie in service and unity,” she said. “The humanitarian side of the competition revolves around submitted essays on a team’s service and a presentation. Both sides of the competition present opportunities for top earners to secure a spot at World Championships in Houston.’’

Wave Robotics took home the Team Sustainability Award, an indicator of the hard work they have put into maintaining the group. 

“We are one of the first teams in the world to win this award,” Chung said. “It’s brand-new this year, and it awards teams with the most merit in consistent management and objective achievements.” 

Junior Benjamin Grill is grateful for the new accolade. 

“With 60 teams at regionals, a select few win awards,” he said. “It’s exciting to add it to our collection of more than 45 awards.”

The FIRST Robotics Competition Season falls under the theme of ‘Charged Up!’ in the parent FIRST organization’s theme of ‘ENERGIZE.’  

“Robots race across a field to grab cones and cubes and place them on a multi-level platform with additional points given for placing objects three in a row,” said junior team lead Isabelle Polishinski. “At the end of each game, teams drive up to a charging station and are given points for balancing on it with other robots.”

This year the students on the team created a 125-pound robot called ‘N-Defector.’ They designed the robot for maximum functionality to compete in challenges where it would be required to move cubes, cones, and game pieces as well as balance. Grill was very proud of the final result and was familiar with all the parts of the team’s creation.

“It has a custom three-wheel differential swerve on a pentagon drive base. It has a custom multi-stage elevator that is set at a 35 degree angle and can reach more than three feet outside of our frame perimeter,” he said. “Our end effector is capable of carrying and delivering both cubes and cones, and our robot is made from a variety of materials; mainly consisting of aluminum, polycarbonate, and 3D printed materials like carbon fiber and PLA.”

In past years, the team used a west coast drivetrain which had a limited range of motion, could go forward and backward through gear box motors, and turn by powering one side forward and one side back. This year Chung and the team thought of doing something a little different.

“We took on a new challenge this year by creating a custom differential swerve, and we used three modules on our drivetrain,” she said. “It’s a unique feature that sets us apart from many other teams and provides stable power thanks to the two motors geared together, spinning in opposite directions for added torque.”

Grill, who has been on the team for two years and involved in the FIRST program since fourth grade, knows how necessary teamwork is in this event.

“Regionals are fast paced so everyone has to be flexible and able to work together,” he said. “Issues may arise, so it's important to fix them as fast as possible. So at all times, we have a group of students who are in the pits, working out any issues.” 

Chung takes on an expansive role at the competitions, acting as a resource for others from her competition experience. 

“The regional environment has so many new factors and challenges that come along with it, which can make tensions high and morale strained,” she said. “I work on maintaining the well-oiled machine of our team in the stands and down in the pit.”

Junior Tyler Mullenbach takes on the role of scouting and data collection at competitions. 

“We had the task of taking intense notes on other robots' performances and their strengths and weaknesses in order to create the best possible strategy for going forward in Regionals,” he said.

After qualification matches are over, the top eight teams become alliance captains. Each alliance captain picks two other teams for their alliance. Polishinski thinks that this is a vital time for the scouting team.

“This is when our scouting team presents all their data and recommendations for which robots would be the best to pick,” she said. “After the alliances are made, a double elimination bracket begins. The alliance that wins will then compete at Worlds.”

Though regionals were only three days long, Chung explained that preparations began much earlier. 

“We started our differential swerve designs back last summer, after a team vote,” she said. “We knew that this would be a project that would take some time, so we started working pre-season.”

 Six weeks prior to regionals, the challenge was finally released and in order to fully design and build their robot, Grill said that the team had to be very dedicated to finish within the strict time limit.

“Many members put in over 35 hours each week,” he said.

Like many organizations and teams, Wave is composed of seven sub-teams: Computer Aided Designs (CAD,) manufacturing, systems, software, marketing, impact, and scouting. With each team having a different role in building the overall machine. These subgroups are essential to the success of the robot, according to Polishinski.

“The robot starts in CAD where Wave students design the entire robot online. Every component is preplanned and accounted for, ensuring everything fits and works on the robot,” she said. “After that, each part of the robot is sent over to manufacturing where the parts are made and assembled. Our systems subteam gets to wire it up, ensuring that the robot has power and proper communication.”

Grill is in charge of translating the team’s wishes into reality via code communications. 

 “The Software subteam then programs the robot in C++,” he said. “Through this, our robots can move through both an Xbox controller and autonomously.”

While a major part of the team deals with robotics, Polishinski notes that many take on expansive roles past mechanics. 

“Our marketing team designs new shirts each year, makes buttons, keeps the website updated, and anything else related to marketing the team,” she said. “Our scouting team creates strategy and collects data on the other teams' robots during competitions. Lastly, our impact team writes an essay about the team's community outreach and gives a presentation at competitions.”

Amongst efforts to keep the team on track, the team ran into obstacles and delays they had to persevere through.

“Since this was a Week 1 event, teams generally are more unprepared compared to a Week 5 event, where they have the extra buffer,” Chung said. “Going into this regional, we knew that there would be some adjustments to make, and we wanted to use this as an opportunity to work out the kinks and try as many different strategies as we could.”

Chung has her sights set on a continued ripple of achievement. 

“We were doing great in the first three matches and were ranked in the top nine,” she said. “Although some matches didn’t go as planned, I’m grateful for the opportunity to understand some of the inconsistencies with our initial design in order to make our robot better for the La Crosse regionals and, hopefully, championships in Houston.”

By Fahad Mian

Published March 17, 2023

Oshkosh West Index Volume 119 Issue VI