by Breeana Laughlin, Anderson Valley Post

 Students in Anderson New Technology High School's Robotics Club have spent the last eight weeks putting together a robot. Last weekend, they had the chance to test their creation in the Nor-Cal Robotics Championships in San Jose.

The five core students in the club have spent hours upon hours in trial and error assembling their robot and coding it to recognize color, move in certain directions, pick up objects, and turn on and off on cue.

"Sometimes it's frustrating, but that's part of getting it working," said robotics club member Christopher Needham.

The students were supplied with a robotics kit that included legos, motors and other sensors.

Each of the 28 teams in the robotics competition had to work with the same kit.

"That way, the true skill of the kids programming, their creative thinking and problem solving is the focus and not the machinery," said New Tech teacher Jeff Carr.

This year, the competition had a green energy theme. The students had to program their robots to move blue foam balls to the top of a slope, simulating the storage of water for hydroelectric power. They are also encouraged to gather windmills on the competition board, as well as green
foam balls that represent green energy, and place those in a storage tank.

"It's really about who built the best robot, and who told it to do it the best way," explained robotics member Zachary Goins.

"The hardware is pretty easy to make. It's the code that is going to make or break the team," Needham added.

Robotics club students had to program the robot before the competition began. Once the 2 minute time period begins, the students just have to watch and hope they programmed the robot correctly.

"We tell the computer we want you to go forward about one foot and turn right. But it's not like a remote control. We press a button and tell it to go, and then sit there and pray," Goins said. "It's kind of like a remote control for a house cat."

Overall, New Tech's Robotics Club finished between 12th and 14th of 21 teams competing in the day.

They lost the first head-to-head and then won two contests, qualifying themselves back into the quarter finals.

Then, our single robot was stymied by the No. 2 seeded team that built and programmed 2 robots (allowed in the rules), one of which was designed soley to tangle and block the other team's robot so their scoring robot could move about the board unimpeded.

The team will now build two or three free-style robots to show off at the New Tech Open House set for April 25. They will also display their robots and talk about programming and robotics at the fifth grade career day in late May at Simpson University.