The competitions are not only a show of science and engineering. The event is peppered with performances, cheer leading, dancing and overall team spirit. There was even a first ever (at least as seen by me) performance of a live iPad2 GarageBand. There were 4 guys all plugged in playing music off their iPad2s.  The three day event is quite a production and getting a chance to witness the student and audience energy is well worth the visit to Stan Sheriff Center on the UH campus.

This year’s event was also streamed from the NASA Robotics site. You can also read more about the various robotics competitions coming up during the rest of the year in this robotics Special Feature. Here is a set of photos I shot on during the Friday, March 24th qualifying heats. Hope to see you at the next robotics competition.

This year’s theme was medical related with challenges simulating a rapid blood screening, artery stent, cardiac missions, brain missions, bionic eyes, etc. Teams must design, build, test and program an autonomous robot to accomplish the Challenge Mission on the playing field. The game is based on a point system and each team has three qualifying rounds. Each round is 2:30 minutes long.

In the video students from Pauoa Elementary School program their robot to perform predefined tasks. Once activated the robot is autonomous, functioning without remote controls. Each team is allowed only two members at the playing field at a time although they can switch out by tagging one of their members.

Aaron Dengler, science teacher at Punahou School told me that FLL is less about robotics and more about engineering and team work. Each of the robot kits include a controller, sensors, mechanics and power. Bringing it all together is an engineering task. In addition to the design, testing and performance, each team has to research the theme and do a presentation to a panel of judges. Months of planning and activities lead up to the FLL Championship. I was quite impressed with the enthusiasm each of these young teams demonstrated and felt reassured that this program is an excellent feeder into futures in science and technology.

The 3rd Annual Pan-Pacific VEX Competition was held at the Hawaii Convention Center on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 3-4, 2010. 112 teams from across the U.S. including 12 from Mainland China competed in the event. This year’s game, Round Up, is played on a 12’x12’ square field. Two alliances – one “red” and one “blue” – composed of two teams each, compete in matches consisting of a twenty-second autonomous period followed by two minutes of driver-controlled play.

The object of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponent alliance by scoring tubes upon goalposts, “owning” goalposts and by low hanging or high hanging from the ladder in the center of the field. A bonus is awarded to the alliance that has the most total points at the end of the Autonomous Period.

You can see in this video how the robots need to pick up as many rings and place them on goalposts located along the rim of the playing field or those distributed in the playing field. The robot designs differ primarily in the way they pick up the rings. In the examples in the video, the teams build robots to scoop the rings up to place them on the goalposts. In this alternative design an arm is placed in the hole of the ring and holding the ring in place. Additional rings can be grabbed, one on top of the other. One interesting bonus point exercise had the robot latching onto the triangular structure in the playing field and lifting itself above the yellow rung.

This is the largest regional VEX tournament which leads up the the World Championships in Orlando Florida on April 14-16, 2011. Winners from the Pan Pacific VEX Competition this weekend will continue on to Orlando to represent their school and State.

***UPDATE – 12/5/10, 7:28pm: The winning alliance of the HECO Division included ‘Iolani School, Bellarmine Preparatory Academy (Team A) and Bellarmine Preparatory Academy (Team B) from San Jose, California. Waiakea High (Team A), Waiakea High (Team B) and Tianjin Nankai Huanghedao Primary School (Tianjin, China) took second place in the HECO Division.

The ROC Division champions included Island School, Radford High and Waialua High. Honoka‘a High, Radford High and Waialua High earned second place in the ROC Division.

The champion alliance of the HECO and ROC Divisions competed in the high-stakes final championship rounds. In the end, the three-team alliance from ‘Iolani School, Bellarmine Preparatory Academy (Team A) and Bellarmine Preparatory Academy (Team B) from San Jose, California took the top honors, finishing as the Pan-Pacific Champions.

Six Hawai’i schools who competed at the Pan Pacific Championship qualified to advance to the VEX Robotics World Championship that will take place at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, April 18-20, 2011, including:

• Highlands Intermediate School
• ‘Iolani School
• Island School
• Radford High
• Waiakea High
• Waialua High

I found it interesting how these entities, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Marine Corp Warfighting Laboratory, Virginia Tech and Torc worked together to produce GUSS. Funding came through the Department of Defense (Dahlgren) to the Warfighting Lab which then developed the specification for the autonomous vehicle. Virginia Tech is  leveraged for their programming and mechanical engineering expertise. Finally Torc is hired to build the units.  Seems like a viable partnership between DOD, University and a commercial company. Keep in mind Torc is not a vendor providing this directly to the military. GUSS is still in prototype. If the military decides to deploy these units, they will then go out to bid for production. Any limitations in GUSS’ performance will be identified in these RIMPAC exercises and the team will qualify what needs to be done next.

This year’s VEX Robotics Competition, held on Dec 4-5, involved the clearing of balls from one side of the field onto the other. Opponents needed to build robots that could pick up nerf size soccer balls and footballs and either dump them into the opponents area, shove them through a small window or throw them over the side. It was great to watch the strategy of the game and the thought that goes into designing the robots. All the teams participating in the 2009 challenge get the same VEX kit and instructions on the game objectives. This year’s field included 90+ teams most from Hawaii but several from China and the US mainland.

This video was particularly interesting as it clearly showcases the objectives for the challenge. The teams challenging each other are Farrington/McKinley (Blue Team) and Bellarmine College Prep (Red Team). The first 30 seconds is an autonomous period. The robot functions on its own, based on preprogrammed instruction. The goal is to get as many balls over to the opponents area as possible. The video starts off in the Bellarmine field and later moves over to the Farrington/McKinley side. Pay close attention to the Bellarmine design. Their robots have unique qualities. The robot closest to the camera can fling the balls from the basket. Very useful to minimize the balls falling out of the basket back onto your side. It also efficiently picks up balls by drawing them into the basket. The other robot on the far side is made for defense, able to block the opponent’s robot from dropping balls on your side. During the autonomous period they are able to unload a lot of balls.

During the next phase the robots are controlled by operators. Notice how quickly the Bellarmine team scoops balls and clears their area. It was nearly empty when I decided to move over the view the Farrington/McKinley side.  To the credit of the Farrington/McKinley team they gave it an awesome try but the McKinley robot ran into technical difficulty and froze. It was a lopsided victory for Team Bellarmine, who went on to sweep the championship.

Of course it is all not about winning the competition. A lot of studies, teamwork, strategy, presentation skill and execution goes into the VEX competition. There were teams as young at 8-9 year olds from China, middle school kids from Pearl City Highlands, high schoolers and the Bellarmine team (** Note: the Bellarmine team members are all high schoolers as well) who had parents/mentors that work at NASA Ames Research. All in all a very fun and exciting event to witness.

Congratulations to all the teams that participated. Excellence awards went to McKinley and Pearl City Highlands; Tournament Finalists when to Honoka`a and Waiakea High Schools. You can see the full results here. I am looking forward to next year’s challenge.