


About the Camp
In our Robotics camp, each student used the Tetrix MAX robotics kit to design and build their own robot. This is the same kit that is used at the FIRST Tech Challenge. The FTC is the competition that is next in the sequence after the FIRST Lego League.
On Monday, we started by reviewing shop safety and began building a basic chassis. In the afternoon, we hosted our first "competition": an obstacle course. Jason had the fastest time, and Zach and Saam came in second and third place.
On Tuesday we built and mounted our first mechanism to the chassis: a gripper arm. The afternoon challenge was a target retrieval challenge. The students had to bring back as many objects as the could from the filed in a two and a half-minute window. The added twist was a large target called the "Devastator" that was very tough to move but worth a lot of points. Maheep won this challenge by quickly scoring with the Devastator which left him plenty of time to score more points with smaller targets. Jason came in second by also scoring with the Devastator and Saam came in third place.
On Wednesday, we began work on mounting two new mechanisms on the robots: a device that harvested target objects and an onboard storage unit. This design included a custom 3-D printed part that was designed by Mr. Brodie. Like Tuesday's competition, the goal was to retrieve as many targets as possible in three minutes. There were two new factors: there was a "teeter-totter" ramp in the middle of the field and the boys would be working in teams of two. Videos of our practice rounds can be found here and here. The team of Jack and Jason won this round. Maheep and Nathan came in second place and Alex and Henry came in third.
On Thursday we dismantled our original chassis and began building a new design. This one was called "The Mantis" because it resembled a praying mantis. The campers were told to stick to the basic design, but to leave enough flexibility to mount some sort of "weapon" for Friday's competition.
Friday we unveiled our final contest: a jousting competition. We mounted two targets on each robot and challenged the campers to create weapons and defensive mechanisms to win at jousting. Videos of the jousting can be found here. Henry emerged the overall victor in this competition. Jason and Maheep were second, and Jack and Tal were third.