Trojans robotics team assembles to build a bot — and have fun, too

WORTHINGTON — After months of planning, building and programming, the Trojans robotics team competed against 60 other teams, and while they finished 32nd, they showed significant development and improvement throughout — and created a cute, effective little robot, too.

“I think the competition went well. I am extremely pleased with how well it went,” said Duane Hansen, a paraprofessional at Worthington High School and one of the team’s two coaches.

“Our motto is ‘Be better,’ and we did,” said Dr. José A. Morales Collazo, WHS science teacher and team coach. The first day of competition was tough, he recalled, but the team had a meeting and came in bot-blazing the second day, flying up 20 spots in the rankings. “It was a huge jump.”

This year, 16 students went to the regional competition at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, and only two will be graduating, meaning that next year’s team will bring a significant amount of experience to the table — an edge that could help them reach the state level.

“We have a road map, and I feel confident these kids can get there,” Hansen said.

In robotics, a varsity activity recognized by the Minnesota State High School League, organizers reveal a game, complete with rules and boundaries, in January. Students must then build and program a robot that can play the game, in competition with other robots. Last year’s game involved giant tennis balls. This year’s contest involved picking up inflatable cubes, placing cones on a pole and balancing on a teeter-totter-like surface along with two other robots.

Alexia Puente / District 518

There are points for winning matches against other teams, but there are also points for playing the game — and playing the game was where the Trojans excelled, earning one more point for gameplay than for winning matches.

“Out of the 10 times we’ve gone to a regional, this is our third best performance,” Hansen said.

Last year, the first year back after the break caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, saw the team navigating a massive learning curve, but they learned from their mistakes, Morales Collazo said. And this year’s greatly improved performance reflected that, Hansen added.

The team will bring the robot to an off-season competition focusing on the same game in the fall, enabling them to get more experience before the season proper begins — something they also did this year.

“They came back with the fire to really organize,” said Morales Collazo, describing the scrimmage as an opportunity to network with other teams and get inspired by their efforts, creations and other students. For example, robotics is a male-dominated sport, so seeing an all-girl team from another school succeed was inspirational for Worthington’s diverse team.

There are many different roles on a robotics team, some of which overlap a bit, and students often perform multiple roles, too.

Alexia Puente / District 518

Madison Einck, a WHS junior, served as the robot’s driver, a challenging position that demands a cool head and the ability to focus on controlling the robot and scoring points while also listening to everyone else on the team. Those other team members are paying attention to everything else on the field, including competitors to avoid, defend against or steal a piece from, and help keep the driver informed.

“There are multiple people interested in driving. It’s the position most people want to be in,” Einck said.

“It’s also the most stressful, because you control it, and if something goes wrong…” said Jose Sierra, a freshman who served as both a tech and programmer for the bot.

As a tech, his job was to fix the robot if something went wrong during the match, particularly if it involved the software.

Sierra hopes to go into game development after he’s done with school.

“I want something with my name on it to go out to the world,” he said.

Einck and Sierra both agreed that anyone interested in participating in robotics next year should give it a try.

“Do it. Just do it. It’s such a fun thing, such a fun experience,” Sierra said.

“I was a little late joining in, but I’m really glad I did,” Einck agreed. “... we want people ready to learn and just dive into it.”

While some of the positions on the robotics team are technical, others are less so. For example, sophomore Wyatt Adolph served as media for the team as well as working on the robot, and fellow sophomore Juicy Mi was a programmer and team mascot.

Though not all teams have a mascot, many do, allowing Mi to dress up in costume as the Trojans’ robot, dance to music, cheer and talk to other teams.

As a programmer, she already knew Python, but had to pick up a whole new language, Java, in order to work on the robot. Mi hopes to be a robotics engineer when she’s finished with school.

In his media role, Adolph created a website for the team during a web design class, and also recorded matches from the crowd’s perspective. The material is used for marketing purposes and can help a team get sponsored.

“Not all of (the roles) are 100% necessary, but they can help out in the long run,” he said.

Working with the robot was fun and sometimes, challenging, as it has many parts and great precision was required.

“We would be off by a quarter of an inch and we would have to tear it up and rebuild it,” Adolph recalled, noting that one of the robot’s nine motors was particularly temperamental. He said team members could learn all kinds of different skills in robotics, from electrical work to technical design and 3D printing.

Students also design team T-shirts and posters, so those skills are also useful to the robotics team, Mi said.

“This program is here so all the kids in the school have the opportunity to find their space and their thing,” Hansen said.