The HHS Robotics Club is going to be competing in the Botball New England regional competition at UMass Lowell on March 28. This year will mark our second year of participating in this particular competition. The goal of the competition is to use a standard robot kit in order to complete challenges that change every year. The hard part is that team members are not allowed to remotely control the robot in any way; the program has to be entirely autonomous. Speaking from personal experience, that task is just about as hard as it sounds. But it’s ultimately rewarding in the end.

Last year was a learning experience for Hanover’s nascent robotics team. We were only able to successfully complete a few of the many challenges that the competition required. Even without taking home a first place trophy, we were able to learn enough about how the competition worked to be able to be competitive this year.

This year, the robot has to complete a series of tasks that involve moving objects around a court made of PVC piping. It’s roughly the size of four classroom desks. The robot pushes around several colored pom poms and also has to move ping pong balls into a basket that is about a foot and a half off of the ground. As I’m sure you can imagine, the robot becomes very complex very quickly. Yet, there is no feeling like the feeling you get when it all finally works.

Now since competition season is upon us, Robotics Club is looking for new members to join. You don’t need to have any prior experience with robotics at all and we will show you everything that you need to know. Talk to Mrs. Borgeson in Room 116 or just show up to our meetings every week after school on Tuesdays. We’ll be meeting more often now that the competition season has begun.

Hope to see you there!