When someone says ‘robotics’  a person might think about little metal figurines battling it out in the middle of the floor, with a couple of kids running the remotes hoping their robot comes out the victor. But robotics is so much more than that.  It involves creativity, design, and implementation of a team’s vision.  Spending time watching how a Robotics class functions, can really be interesting and eye-opening as one would obtain first hand knowledge of robotics.

Erie High’s robotics class, as is typical,  begins with students taking their seats, attendance being called, and then students immediately beginning their work.  Everyone seems to take a piece of the puzzle, and their individual roles come together while working toward a common goal to complete the vision of their team.  

So how does one get involved in Robotics? What kind of experience or knowledge does a person need to come into this class?

Xander Hauke gave some insight and background to this very detail oriented class. 

Xander noted that a person does not need any kind of background or prior knowledge of robotics. He noted that a classmate had not had any previous robotics experience, and had no idea how to do it; but the team collaboratively worked with her to teach her what she needed to know. 

Xander says he became involved in Robotics while at Soaring Heights.  “I was in the robotics classroom and the assignment was to build a robot using Vex IQ parts.” He had fun, so he joined the actual team but they put him with Vex EDR because he was in 8th grade. He said he just enjoyed coding – how much fun it was..

There are different levels of robotics to get involved in.  Vex IQ is for elementary/middle school kids. The class he takes is Vex EDR, which is more advanced.Vex IQ  uses plastic parts, and EDR uses metal parts to build.

Each team member sharing their ideas and offering input is helpful in how the class works. The input and ideas of others is especially important when troubleshooting issues. The team comes together to shed light on the matter and how it can be fixed. It’s so refreshing to see this group come together and pitch in.!

So much time and thought goes into the planning of building a robot.  The robots are designed in advance, and if anything else needs to be done, the group works through it. Assigning tasks to each member of the group ensures that no one person gets stuck building the same thing so tasks are assigned accordingly.

Xander added that classes can do scrimmages against each other, or with Soaring Heights. But once competition comes around, they can go up against any Colorado school that’s going to that competition.

Being prepared for competition is important too. It’s common to bring along a crate or box full of extra parts, screwdrivers, brains, and batteries just in case you run into a situation. Robotics competition includes skills matches which is about programming, where the robot operates only by program, or they can  drive for 1 minute to gain as many points as they can. Skill matches don’t involve opponents or allies, it’s just an opportunity to gain as many points as you can. When it’s time for the actual match, about 7 games are played then teams are picked for elimination. 

Judges come around to the robot, ask the team questions about their robot, and all sorts of things. They also have the team’s notebook, and they will decide who has the best presentations and notebook. The team can get a reward from just that. Typically volunteers get to be judges, but they need to read the whole Vex EDR manual and know a lot about the game to be a judge. 

Walking around the classroom and listening in on how the teams compliment each other’s strengths and lend a hand when needed was great to see.  Witnessing how a team’s vision, design, and hard work come together was really exciting!  

Mr. Schmitz’s classes are highly informational. You might enjoy the time learning more about Robotics and how it all works and comes together.  Seeing the students enjoying what they’re doing, and coming together as one, truly encompassed the meaning of the word team and Tiger pride!