ML Circuit Breakers prepare for Stronghold competition

The Medical Lake High School Circuit Breakers robotics team is gearing up for the 2016 season.

This year the Circuit Breakers, along with others, will compete in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Stronghold, where an alliance of three teams uses their robots to capture on opponent's' tower.

Bernie Polikowsky, one of the team's mentors, said the team is engineering their robot to have it focus on shooting boulders to weaken their opponents' defense. During Stronghold's 2 minute, 15 second tele-operated period, human drivers control their robots to retrieve boulders, overcome opponents' defenses and throwing boulders into towers. The team also built the robot smaller, enabling it to go underneath the low bar, a defense mechanism that stays in the same spot throughout the match.

"The low bar is also by a secret passage where the team can feed boulders to the robot," Polikowsky added. "We're also giving software people a chance to do some testing before launch. This year students are focusing on one specific area that they can do well."

One of the modifications the team added to the machine, according to senior Boaz Guidry, are the eight spinning wheels. The front wheels will bring the ball into the back wheels. The back wheels will hold the ball while the front wheels are spinning, gaining momentum, then release it. The team will also use a camera at the driver's station, something they hadn't done in a couple of years.

"One of the challenges of making the robot smaller is fitting the components into a tight spot," Guidry said. "We still need to do some tweaking."

Polikowsky added that the team is fully aware that teams who make it to the championship rounds have machines that can "do it all." The Circuit Breakers finished 16th out of 64 teams at last year's FIRST Pacific Northwest District Championships, at Eastern Washington University, and competed in the final match as an alternate.

The Circuit Breakers have taken their marketing and business efforts to the next level.

Austin Kepner, a Medical Lake High School alum who studies at EWU, is one of the team's mentors that helps the business team. In the past, the team has had members focus on building, programming and marketing at the same time. Having a group focused strictly on business has allowed the team to recruit sponsors and pursue fundraising ideas.

"Business is just as important as the other elements of the team," Kepner said. "For me, it's nice to come back and teach the younger members new stuff."

Polikowsky noted that more parents are involved with the team this year than in the past.

When he's asked other teams what has helped contribute to their success, one of the common answers he's heard is parent involvement.

"Each parent helps the team with their own skills," Polikowsky said. "We've been able to make our own parts through some parents' resources. Others help with fundraisers and some prepare lunches for us."

Polikowsky said this is also the first year the team has submitted essays and videos for awards in different categories, something he's proud of.

"They've gone beyond slapping a robot together and making T-shirts," he said.

Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.