SSMS Robotics qualifies for State at Miller Grove tournament
The Sulphur Springs Middle School 8th grade robotics team competed in Miller Grover on Saturday in a tournament to determine if their teams would be able to advance to the State level. The students have had to work together as a team of four to build and code their robot to compete on a 12 x 12 field with three other robots at the same time.
While on the 12 x 12 field, each team is a paired up with another team from another school as an alliance. They work together to clear the field of the discs or turn roller from red to blue. There is a high goal, for the discs, worth five points and a low goal below the basket worth one point. The robots are coded to collect the discs into their “bodies” and throw them into the basket. Another way they can earn points is by turning the rollers to their color. Before the match each team is assigned a color, red or blue and if they turn the roller and keep it their color they are awarded ten points.
Towards the end of the match the teams can participate in an “End Game” where they can shoot out ropes to cover as many tiles as possible. Each tile they cover is worth three points. The object of the game is to score as many points as possible at the end of the match which will place the teams in a more dominate position for the finals.
At the end of the day only one Sulphur Springs Middles School team qualified to go to State by earning the Excellence Award. This award is an automatic bid to State and means that the students did well in all aspects of the game for the day, as well as performing highly in their skills test, preparing an engineering notebook and their interview process. Plus their robot design helps to earn points in the recognition.
The robotics team will continue to work hard and prepare for their state competition and hopefully find another competition to help the second team advance as well.
Contributed by Allison Libby-Thesing
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpQP8pNzNT5ml9CqehzJEqA
