Livermore High School Robotics Team
Wins Robofest 2008 World Championship
Members of the robotic team are (from left) Robert Hobson, Daniel Handrock, Drew Accornero and Saqib Mohammad.
The robots are named (left) Havok and Behemoth.
By Patricia Koning
Robots—once relegated to the pages of science fiction—are becoming increasingly pervasive in everyday life. For a few hundred dollars, its is possible to buy a robot that will vacuum or mop floors.
Robotics, the study of robots, has been around at the college and graduate level for decades. Recently, it is becoming part of the regular curriculum at many high schools and even some middle schools.
Teacher Mike Waltz started the robotics program at Livermore High School (LHS) three years ago, with a robotics class and afterschool robotics club. At first glance, robotics might seem like playing with fancy toys, but through this “play” students learn a wide range of programming, engineering, and physics concepts.
“This is more like a college course,” he says. “It’s definitely the most fun class I teach, more like what I studied in graduate school.”
Last month the LHS Robotics Team, comprised of seniors Drew Accornero, Daniel Handrock, Robert Hobson, and Saqib Mohammad, showed just how serious they are. They beat out 155 other teams from as far away as England, France, and South Korea to win the senior division at the Robofest 2008 World Championships, held at Lawrence Technological University (LTU) in Southfield, Michigan.
The competition tested how well autonomous mobile robots, built and programmed entirely by high school students, could perform in a timed scenario. The teams were given the mission in October, and spent the next six months perfecting their robots.
The mission was straightforward—using automated robots, rescue four “people” (foil covered tennis balls) trapped in a pile of “debris” (Kleenex boxes) inside a collapsed building or mine. Teams were given the playing field configuration and parameters such as the basic placement of the balls, walls, and rough terrain (simulated by taping three pencils to the table).
In competition, points are awarded based on the robots performing the mission tasks of removing the debris and carrying trapped “people” back to the safe zone, as well as staying intact in the active zone throughout the game. Points are also taken away for knocking “people” off the table, falling off the table, or being touched by a team member outside of the safe zone.
The LHS Robotics Team constructed their robots from LEGOs, using LEGO Mindstorm NXT kits as the basis. “We used LEGOs because they are easy to build with and reconfigure,” says Waltz. “Plus we had a lot of materials easily available.”
The two Mindstorm NXT kits, one belonging to Waltz and the other to the LHS robotics program, were supplemented by Handrock’s vast personal LEGO collection. The students added sensors and other electronics to complete the robots.
Some teams at Robofest 2008 worked with robots designed from hobby robotic kits similar to hobby radio controlled cars. The South Korean teams, who have corporate sponsors, used industrial robots.
In the competition, teams first took a short written test, to determine that the students had indeed built and programmed the robots themselves. Then they ran their robots through the mission twice. The final score was based on the combined total from both rounds, with time used as a tie-breaker.
The LHS Robotics Team won based on their consistent performance. In the first round, they scored 140 out of a possible 150 points with the next team earning 90 points. In the second round, they scored 130 points. While the second place finisher, the South Korean team Dae Goo Ji 2, earned a perfect score in that round, it still wasn’t enough to best LHS’ total score.
Waltz says he expected the team to do well, but was surprised they won, especially against the South Koreans. He’s quick to point out that the students can take full credit for their outstanding performance. “I taught them the basics. They took it from there,” he says. “I just stayed out of their way and kept them safe.”
The four teammates each played a different role on the team. Mohammad, a self-described natural programmer, wrote most of the programming. Handrock was the “inventor” who came up with the basic design that Accornero and Hobson then refined.
Several distinct design and programming features of the LHS robots enabled them to dominate at Robofest. Key to their success was how the robots collected the tennis balls; while other teams’ robots simply swept up the balls, often losing them before returning to the safe zone, the LHS robots used wheels to pull the balls into the robot and deposit them in a basket at the back.
Mohammed also programmed the robots so they could handle multiple scenarios during the competition. After knocking over the Kleenex boxes, the LHS robots made another sweep to make sure they were all out of the way, thus ensuring they received the maximum points for that task.
“It’s easy to make a robot that will complete a basic task. But it is a challenge to make it smart enough to know when there is a problem,” says Mohammed.
The four students each received a $2,000 scholarship to LTU for their first place finish in the senior division. While they’ve already been accepted into prestigious universities, Mohammed says the scholarship is good leverage for winning other awards.
“My recommendation is that if in four years they are still really interested in robotics, contact the LTU professor who runs the competition,” says Waltz. “They can always use the scholarship for graduate school.”
Waltz, an LHS alumni, has a masters in mechanical engineering (ME) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and worked as an ME before joining the LHS staff. He still does contract engineering work in the summer.
This fall Accornero will attend U.C. Davis, Handrock will attend Valparaiso University in Indiana, Hobson will attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and Mohammed will attend UCLA.
Currently, the robotics class is designing sports robots to play soccer. Waltz and the LHS Robotics Team may enter the RoboGames (http://robogames.net) in San Francisco this June. For more information on Robofest, visit www.robofest.net/. Select “game competition” to view a video of the LHS robots in action.