PHS robotics team attends regional tournament

By Cameron McMillan
Special to KP News
 


Peninsula High School is the first school to have a Botball team in the Pacific Northwest, which includes Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The school’s team attended a regional competition in California in April, winning special Judge’s Choice Awards for “Best Sportsmanship” and “Best Presentation.”

Joel Overly holds one of his team’s robot creations during a demonstration for Peninsula High School students. The team, called “Fear the Hawk,” showed off its skills in April prior to leaving for California. Photo by Hugh McMillan

Botball is a robotics competition that is sponsored by the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics (KISS stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” which is also the institute’s motto). While participating in this competition, every student team receives an identical set of Legos and assorted metal parts with which to construct their own robots. All the robots must be designed to operate autonomously, meaning they must perform their functions without receiving outside commands. As the members of the Botball team like to say, “Real robots don’t need remote controls.”
This is the second year PHS has had a robotics team “The robotics team gives me a lot of experience working with things that don’t work even though they should,” said head team programmer Austin Cluff. “It gave us an excuse to stay inside in front of computers on nice days.”
But the Botball competition is more than just an enjoyable pastime; it provides the team members with practical experience in a highly technical field and helps teach them how to design, build and test a complex machine. All current team members agree they are doing much better this year than last. Team captain Bryan Humlie said, “This gives me experience for my career field, computer engineering. And it’s fun!”

Being the only Northwest team in the Botball tournament means there is no league in the immediate region, so the PHS team had to travel all the way to California to compete at the Botball regional championship on April 19 at the University of Santa Clara. They faced stiff competition this year, going up against 27 other teams, most from northern California. In the end, the PHS team placed 11th in the ratings, in addition to winning the two judge’s choice awards.

The coach for the team is Sheri Ahlheim, a math teacher at PHS. She’s trying to increase interest in and support for the team since many of the current members are going to be graduating this year and heading off to college. If the team doesn’t recruit more members, it may not be able to continue next year, which would be a great loss for the school since this is one of the few activities it has for showcasing the talents of technically-minded students.

The KISS Institute’s robotics competition in California had 28 teams competing. Photo courtesy Sheri Ahlheim

“I knew it would mean a lot of extra hours outside normal school hours for me, but it’s such a great opportunity for the kids to explore something different,” said Ahlheim, who is volunteering her time to lead the team. 
Botball is not a cheap activity. It costs $2,500 to register a team and members have to pay their own travel expenses to go to California for the tournament. Ahlheim arranged a partial scholarship from the KISS Institute to help defray the entry costs for the competition this year. The team also received a generous donation from the PHS Boosters, which covered the rest of the entry fee. With only limited financial support from Peninsula School District, the team is actively seeking additional funding to ensure that PHS can to continue to participate in Botball next year.
Ahlheim hopes to expand the program and have another Peninsula School District for next year’s competitive season. Some students at both Gig Harbor High School and Key Peninsula Middle School have already expressed interest in the program. She hopes to eventually see Botball Pacific Northwest competitive region. It takes 12 teams to start a new region.

Cameron McMillan is an eighth-grade student at KPMS and a member of the PHS Robotics Team.