Print  email 

Olympia and Avanti students duke it out with robots

• Published March 11, 2009

• Comments (0)

On Tuesday, students from Avanti and Olympia high schools went to the mat with robots designed to detect touch, see light and chase and attack each other, tournament style.

We've got photos here, and our videographer was also there (I'll add the link to his footage as soon as we have it).

The district purchased LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits, which allows students to program the robot "brains" with the BASIC computer language, Avanti technology teacher Brenda Diettrich said. Diettrich, who has taught robotics at Avanti for several years, chose the LEGO kits, because they can be easily be rebuilt and reprogrammed to make new robots.

Bots won the round if they pushed the other bot out of the ring, flipped the opponent over, or removed a part.

The robot brains enabled the bots to be autonomous in the battle ring, so no remote control devices were used in the contest. On their own, the robots sought and chased opponents, used their arms to grab and flip other bots, escaped from bring trapped, and detected the battle ring boundaries to stay in the game.

The winner was Olympia High School student Seamus Anderson, who programmed a wedge that was speedy and efficient at finding other bots and tipping them over. In second place were Avanti students April Devlin and Kathi Clinton, who created a robot with a spinning claw that was good at catching other robots' parts and either removing the part or disabling the bot.

Capital High School technology teacher Scott LeDuc said that in BASIC, the students can program the bots to respond to different stimuli, including touch, light, sound and time. Capital High School students also had been slated to participate, but were unable to get to their bots because their school was closed due to snow on the roof.

Diettrich also said that more advanced students can command the robots with the C computer language.

Students learned robotics either as a unit in a technology class or as an after school activity, but Olympia district Career and Technical Education director Brad Hooper said that one of the district's goals is to create a full-fledged robotics course, which could enable students to participate in regional contests.

-- Venice Buhain, Olympian education reporter