A Martinsville robotics team is poised to impact the world of competitive robotics.
The New College Institute’s STAGS Robot Team 1262 has recently made waves in the world of competitive robotics, winning a slew of pre-season competitions, including the recent Blue Ridge Brawl.
The 13-person team, consisting of students aged 13-18, has been around since 2004, according to Trevor Martin, workforce development director with New College and the team’s coach. While the team has a long pedigree, its robot represents a refresh for the team.
“These aren’t kits that you put together,” Martin said, adding that students have six weeks to build a robot from the ground up.
For the students, building a functioning robot from scratch wasn’t an easy task. STAGS’ robot represents ideas from more than a dozen different people. STAGS, which stands for Students Technologically Advancing for Greater Success, takes part in the FIRST Robotics Competition, known as FRC.
“It’s a very long process,” said team member Charley Amos, 17, during a Saturday work session. “We just prototyped it and hoped for the best.”
The end result is a tank-like machine that maneuvers on wheels with a number of adjustable parts. The team’s robot has done well in recent competitions, taking the top spot at the Blue Ridge Brawl.
The Blue Ridge Brawl featured a diverse range of machines, but STAGS’ creation was among the top performers.
The design is somewhat reminiscent of the machines used in the televised series Battlebots. These machines, however, are not meant for battle.
“The game has kind of changed in the past five years or so,” Martin said. “These things can zip around the field very fast.”
With Martin’s guidance, Amos and a handful of others packed into their Fayette Street lab to run tests. At one point, the robot experienced a malfunction in its movement. Amos and others examined the machine’s underside and attempted a number of fixes. After a few minutes, the machine was back to performing its tasks.
This was a glimpse into the typical competition.
Competitions like the Blue Ridge Brawl require participants to build machines that can do an assortment of tasks, like moving objects from one place to another in an allotted amount of time. Whereas a Battlebot might be designed around incapacitating other machines, the kind of machine built by the STAGS isn’t as straightforward. STAGS team members likened it to solving a puzzle.
Aiding them is an assortment of parts, wires and at least one 3D-printer at their Fayette Street laboratory. On Saturdays, the team spends hours tinkering, coding, troubleshooting and test-running on their personal track to make sure their robot is up to the various tasks they will have to tackle at any given competition.
“The game will be released in January, and then we have a series of competitions,” Martin said. “If we make it far enough … we go to the district level competition and if we’re in the top 10-15 in the district, we qualify for worlds.”
Martin and his team hope to take this momentum into the regular season, which starts in January.
“We knew our robot was very good, but it could be better,” Martin said. “I’m happy to see how well it’s performed, and a lot of that is the kids. We have an exceptional group of kids.”
