Robotics Team at LSN

Story by Talon Cleveland – Staff Reporter

The robotics team has been at LSN since the school year 2006-2007. Robotics team is currently sponsored by Lynn Griffith. 

   “When I started at LSN  in the fall of 2007, I was asked if I would be interested in sponsoring/coaching the robotics team. I was familiar with the FIRST robotics program because both of my daughters had been on the LSHS team,” Griffith said.

    Robotics is a great way for students to be creative and use their imagination. Robotics is a community of imaginative and bright people. Being involved with something like robotics is a great way to build new relationships here and with people from around the world. 

    “The robotics ‘club’ is often confused with Battlebots, but our program designs a robot to play a game. Our program, FIRST, is a varsity-level competition robotics team. Each year, on the first Saturday in January we receive a game. We strategize how a robot would play both offensively and defensively, then start discussing how to build such a machine. The next six weeks after our ‘kickoff’, the team spends each day after school and on weekends building our robot. We start out by making prototypes, then those are put into CAD, parts are manufactured by the students for the robot mechanisms, then assembled. In addition, the robot must be programmed to do the specific tasks to compete 3 v 3 in the competition,” Griffith said.

    Working in robotics is not a simple task. The students must build everything from scratch. There are no instruction manuals to help them build their robot. The robotics team must build and program a robot that can do better than the opposing robots at each game. The three games change each year to help avoid cheating. There is a lot of work that goes into building these robots but you have a good time doing it.

   “Robotics offers something for everyone. You don’t have to have any previous knowledge to be on the robotics team. We have mentors who come in to teach the necessary skills needed. We are always looking for students who are interested in CAD, machining parts, wiring, assembling parts, programming, photography, writing, presenting, and more. Our season is already underway. So, students wanting to check it out should come to informational meetings in the fall,” Griffith said.

 

Photo courtesy of Robotics Team