Medical Lake's robotics team heads to Houston

Against all odds, they've done it again.

Medical Lake High School's Circuit Breakers robotics Team 4513 is once again headed to Houston, Texas, for the FIRST Robotics Competition, or FRC, April 17-19.

"It's the frosting on the competition cake in FIRST robotics," Naomi Moody, team mentor, parent of Circuit Breaker team member Rylie Moody, and unofficial spokesperson for the group said.

The competition in For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, is incredibly tough - global, in fact. Only the dedicated need apply.

"It's a year-long commitment," six-year Circuit Breaker alum Mikal Dieatrick, who now serves as a mentor while attending Eastern Washington University, said.

The robotics competition is much like high school sports, except there are no higher or lower divisions, like 1A or 3B. And instead of helmets or bats, it involves data analysis, calculators and circuit boards.

It's also a worldwide level playing field. Small schools like Medical Lake compete head-to-head against well-heeled magnet and dedicated STEM schools, or with districts with thousands of students from which teams can pick and choose.

"We have to work with what we've got," mentor Bernie Polikowsky said, noting that the team must even compete with their own school's extracurricular activities.

"The fact that we made it is amazing," Polikowsky said at a robotics demonstration event at the Medical Lake Library Monday.

First competition

The robotics competition works like this: FIRST reveals the year's annual theme globally in a simultaneous "kickoff" event, after which teams have just six weeks to determine a strategy, develop funding, design, build and test the robot to meet specified contest parameters, and then give drivers time to practice operating it - all before the first district competition.

This years theme? Destination: Deep Space

Medical Lake is in the PNW District, which includes Washington, Oregon and Alaska. The district had 156 teams competing this year, according to Circuit Breaker business team member Chase Wolfe.

Individual teams accumulate enough points move on to the PNW district championships, held this year in Tacoma, then on to FIRST world championships in either Detroit, Mich. or Houston, Wolfe said.

The games are complex. Competition is based on a 136-page "manual" that teams learn "by heart," according to third year team member and Head Scout Reilly Dieatrick, who is also Mikal's younger brother. For robotic competition neophytes, advancing is based on a elaborate points system, he said.

There are different positions on the team. Not unlike a baseball scout, Reilly uses data - spreadsheets, scatter plots and other data tools - that outline scoring, times and general abilities of other robot teams and, together with team strategists, develops an offensive and defensive strategy for the next round of competition.

Then there are alliances. At competitions, robotics teams are randomly placed in three-team alliances, who then compete against other three-team alliances. After the first rounds, alliance "heads" emerge based on a complex points system. Alliance heads then get to choose who they invite into their alliance as the multi-day competition advances.

The 2019 season

This year the Circuit Breakers blazed through the district qualifying matches at West Valley High School and in Mount Vernon, Wash. - winning an Industrial Design award on the way - before being technically eliminated in the district semi-finals at the Tacoma Convention Center.

But because they had accrued enough points, they managed to land a slot at the FRC in Houston, according to several team members.

The team, the robot

and the cost

The Circuit Breakers numbers vary, Moody said, but the average is "around 25" team members.

But only about 10 will be traveling to Houston, mainly due to the cost.

Robotics is not a cheap endeavor. FIRST rules limit how much can be spent to build a robot. This year it was $5,500, according to Wolfe.

There are also entry fees to compete. Just to enter a team into competition requires a $12,000 registration fee. To compete in the FRC is another $5,000 fee, according to Dieatrick.

Much of that cost is offset by donations, and grants from various organizations, including the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, according to Dieatrick, although current state legislation may ax that grant source.

Individual team members must shell out about $1,000 each to travel to Houston.

It's no wonder the Circuit Breaker crew is constantly out in the community hosting fundraisers.

"Any kind of donation for us is huge,' Dieatrick said.

Gracious

professionalism

If you feel like civility is becoming a lost cause, you might find hope in the FIRST standards of conduct. Robotic teams are "encouraged" to demonstrate what's called "gracious professionalism" - an ideal emphasizing and respecting the value of others, and even helping and cooperating with other teams during competition. No chest-thumping allowed.

Asked what gracious professionalism looked like, the Diaetrick brothers shared a story of an international robotics team who lost their robot in-transit. Because of the emphasis on gracious professionalism, other teams rallied together to provide spare parts, tools and offers to help recreate and reassemble the lost robot so the team could compete.

FIRST is the brainchild of inventor Dean Kamen, who hoped to "inspire young people's interest in science and technology" through the competition, according to the FIRST manual.

FIRST is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity.

Lee Hughes can be reached at lee@cheneyfreepress.com.