By Brenda Erdahl
Staff Writer
To hang inflated tubes from pegs three, six and nine feet off the ground using a homemade robot is the task Annandale High School’s First Robotics team will face at the regional showdown at the University of Minnesota this week.
If that doesn’t work, they’ll try to take out the other teams’ robots by crashing into them before they can accomplish the same task.
They called it “running the defensive.”
It may seem unsportsman-like, but it’s all in good fun at an event that has the primary goal of celebrating science and technology.
This will be the Cardinals’ third trip to the regional competition, which draws more than 150 teams from Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Last year their robot, also called the Crushinator, placed 48th out of 60 teams in their region. The year before, their machine came in 24th.
“I think we’re ready mentally, but the robot – we need some help with programing and getting the motors to work,” Billy Brandt, one of the student engineers, said.
The hardest part, teammate Logan Witter said, will be “getting the robot to do what we want and not something else.”
Witter and Brandt are two of 13 boys and four girls who have worked on the robot since January when they received their component kit.
They had six weeks to design and construct their machine before shipping it off to the U of M.
For the competition, half of the University’s Mariucci Arena will be converted into a playing field where students’ inventions will battle for points by best accomplishing the task.
Every year the objective changes. Last spring the robots went head-to-head in a soccer-type match from which one group of winners went on to compete at nationals.
The Cardinals’ device has a crane attached to the main body of the robot. Using joy sticks, they will drive the Crushinator up to the pegs and, if all goes well, hang the tubes.
Some teams will try to shoot the inner tubes toward their targets and hope they get lucky, the students said. Others will toss them like a Frisbee or design a mechanical arm.
The Annandale group thought about incorporating a scissor lift, but that was too complex, adviser Gerry Bahe said.
Teams are awarded points for how many tubes they hang up in their allotted two minutes and 45 seconds.
If the crane mechanism on the Crushinator doesn’t work, the team’s backup stratergy will be to prevent other teams from scoring by using the robot to disable competitors’ machines.
In the last 10 seconds they will be given the chance for bonus points.
At that time, the Crushinator will deploy Mini-bot, which will crawl to a 10-foot pole and climb it, theoretically beating the other teams’ mini-bots to the top where it will set off a light for 30 extra points.
Honeywell engineer Norm Planer helped the students design Mini-bot and the Crushinator. They also had help from John Dingmann of Dingmann Marine & More, and computer whiz Ken Kauffman.
The team also accepts donations from sponsors because building a robot isn’t cheap.
Designing and constructing a new Crushinator every season costs about $8,000, Bahe said.
This year they received money from Pentair, Malco Products, French Lake Auto Parts, FS3 Inc., E-Z Crusher and the Annandale Lions.
“It is fun, but obviously it’s hard work,” teammate Alex Hastings said. “But when it comes together, it’s fun.”
To hang inflated tubes from pegs three, six and nine feet off the ground using a homemade robot is the task Annandale High School’s First Robotics team will face at the regional showdown at the University of Minnesota this week.
If that doesn’t work, they’ll try to take out the other teams’ robots by crashing into them before they can accomplish the same task.
They called it “running the defensive.”
It may seem unsportsman-like, but it’s all in good fun at an event that has the primary goal of celebrating science and technology.
This will be the Cardinals’ third trip to the regional competition, which draws more than 150 teams from Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Last year their robot, also called the Crushinator, placed 48th out of 60 teams in their region. The year before, their machine came in 24th.
“I think we’re ready mentally, but the robot – we need some help with programing and getting the motors to work,” Billy Brandt, one of the student engineers, said.
The hardest part, teammate Logan Witter said, will be “getting the robot to do what we want and not something else.”
Witter and Brandt are two of 13 boys and four girls who have worked on the robot since January when they received their component kit.
They had six weeks to design and construct their machine before shipping it off to the U of M.
For the competition, half of the University’s Mariucci Arena will be converted into a playing field where students’ inventions will battle for points by best accomplishing the task.
Every year the objective changes. Last spring the robots went head-to-head in a soccer-type match from which one group of winners went on to compete at nationals.
The Cardinals’ device has a crane attached to the main body of the robot. Using joy sticks, they will drive the Crushinator up to the pegs and, if all goes well, hang the tubes.
Some teams will try to shoot the inner tubes toward their targets and hope they get lucky, the students said. Others will toss them like a Frisbee or design a mechanical arm.
The Annandale group thought about incorporating a scissor lift, but that was too complex, adviser Gerry Bahe said.
Teams are awarded points for how many tubes they hang up in their allotted two minutes and 45 seconds.
If the crane mechanism on the Crushinator doesn’t work, the team’s backup stratergy will be to prevent other teams from scoring by using the robot to disable competitors’ machines.
In the last 10 seconds they will be given the chance for bonus points.
At that time, the Crushinator will deploy Mini-bot, which will crawl to a 10-foot pole and climb it, theoretically beating the other teams’ mini-bots to the top where it will set off a light for 30 extra points.
Honeywell engineer Norm Planer helped the students design Mini-bot and the Crushinator. They also had help from John Dingmann of Dingmann Marine & More, and computer whiz Ken Kauffman.
The team also accepts donations from sponsors because building a robot isn’t cheap.
Designing and constructing a new Crushinator every season costs about $8,000, Bahe said.
This year they received money from Pentair, Malco Products, French Lake Auto Parts, FS3 Inc., E-Z Crusher and the Annandale Lions.
“It is fun, but obviously it’s hard work,” teammate Alex Hastings said. “But when it comes together, it’s fun.”
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