Wahluke Junior High Robotics team to compete at state

MATTAWA – One Wahluke Junior High robotics team has secured a spot in the state robotics tournament. Coach Eduardo Martinez thinks that three of his other teams will also make it to state.

WJH robotics teams participated in their first competition of the school year on Dec. 8 in Seattle. The teams placed first, second, third and sixth.

“I feel strongly confident that the four teams we took to Seattle will get to state,” Martinez said.

The teams yet to secure state spots have four more opportunities. They have upcoming tournaments in Ellensburg and Wenatchee and at Wahluke.

Students design and build their own robots.

“We have restraints,” said Sergio Leon, an eighth-grader who started in robotics in fifth grade. “They have to be a certain width and height. They can only have one brain and can only use the parts given to us by the kit.”

“We can build whatever design we want,” said Leslie De Los Santos, who is on the same team as Leon and also an eighth-grader.

Leon and De Los Santos are on a three-person team with Angela Santiago. Their team placed first and qualified for State. After the competition in Seattle, the team members decided to make some modifications to their robot.

“It performed really well,” Leon said. “But if we add this, it will do better.”

The robotics competitions consist of three parts. In the skills portion, the team runs the robot manually. The team gets to show its automation skills in the “autonomous” portion of the competition. In “alliance,” each team works with another team. Points are scored when the robot successfully places cubes on top of towers and balls are placed on top of cubes. Each event lasts for 60 seconds.

“We decided that getting cubes is the most important because it gets more points,” Leon said.

But not all teams have the same strategy. Oliver Alcon, a member of a different Wahluke team, has different opinions. His favorite part of his robot is the back.

“It can pick up balls,” Alcon said. “When cubes are down (on the table), it can leave balls on the top.”

Isaiah Godinez said that he liked his robot because it was bigger than all the rest. Unfortunately, it was built outside of the size limits and has been undergoing a rebuilding.

The robot for a team made up of Ricardo Sandoval, Cavan Jenne and Caijen Herrera has a special trick it can do. It can flip cubes over its back.

“It’s more for the blue cubes,” Sandoval said.

This team’s members have been friends since fifth grade when Herrera joined the friend duo of Sandoval and Jenne.

“Some people call us the Three Musketeers,” Sandoval said.

They placed sixth at the tournament in Seattle.

“If the cube falls off (the tower), you don’t get the points,” Sandoval said.

He also pointed out that while each team gets 60 seconds to compete in each event, one second can make the difference in whether the team gets a point.

Just as every team’s strategy to get points is different, so is every robot. The sixth-grade team of Joanna Lopez, Emely Miranda and Karina Tecuanapa decided to skip the traditional square robot in favor of a triangular one.

“Last year, we had a robot of this design,” said Lopez. “Our teacher liked our thinking.”

Lopez and Miranda were on the same team together last year. They took their design from last year and improved upon it this year. The girls placed second at the Seattle competition.

Martinez said that it can be hard to get girls to participate in robotics.

“They think differently, have different designs,” Martinez said. “A lot of judges were complimenting them on their design. A lot of parents and judges were impressed.”

While they are doing well, the girls aren’t sure whether they will continue in robotics next year. Miranda and Tecuanapa would like to join sports.

“You can do several of them (clubs),” Miranda said. “It’s hard when both are on the same days. I think next year I’ll do sports and robotics. I’ll have to make a schedule.”

Lopez isn’t sure what she is going to do yet.

Wahluke School District students are able to start in robotics in third grade and continue into high school.

“Typically the average years of experience that kids have by the time they get to high school is three years,” said Martinez, who is in his second year of coaching the robotics teams.

In elementary and junior high, students make their robots out of plastic pieces. In high school, they switch to metal. The principles learned on plastic can be transferred over to metal.

Each team is given a kit that contains a basic frame, a controller and a brain, plus the pieces needed to build the robot.

“We went from four competition kits to 11 because we had a lot of interest from kids wanting to do it from elementary,” Martinez said.

To narrow down the number of teams competing, Wahluke held its own private competition prior to the Seattle competition. That competition is when Wahluke robots were required to be completed.

“We did it like it was an actual match,” Martinez said. “We had teams fighting to gain a spot. We replaced a sixth-grade team with a seventh-grade team.”

Students have several opportunities throughout the week to work on their robots and practice their skills. The robotics coaches stay after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. They also are available during lunch on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. And, there are other times randomly dispersed throughout the school year, such as a couple of hours on the last day before Christmas break.

Martinez, who used to coach athletics in the Moses Lake School District, said that the competitive aspect of robotics is the same as athletics. When another team is doing well, he encourages his students to watch and apply some of that team’s concepts.

“What are the little details that can set you apart from other teams competing?” Martinez said. “We even film ourselves. We look at our time stamps, what maneuvers we can do or what maneuvers we’re doing that waste time.”

Winning a competition isn’t the only way teams can qualify for the state competition. Teams keep a notebook or journal with sketches and the pros and cons of their robot. The notebook can be awarded the engineering award and qualify the team for state. Teams that are on the cusp will sometimes be given the teamwork champion and push them on to state. Teams can also record a video on the theme for the year and qualify for state that way.

“This year’s theme is on science and how robots use science,” Martinez said. “We did it last year. The theme was mathematics.”

The team did a comic book. While the judges liked the project, the team didn’t win because there wasn’t enough math involved.

“I would like to do that video again,” Martinez said. “The end of January is when we shoot, film and record the video.”

The final product will be uploaded to YouTube.

While Martinez is confident that all four of his teams that competed in December will make it to state, they have one major problem that could prevent it: funding.

“Our CTE budget that funds these programs is not what is was,” Martinez said. “It’s not fully funded.”

The Wahluke Junior High robotics program only has enough funding for the tournament that happened in December and the one in Ellensburg at the end of January.

“We still need funding for the other three,” Martinez said.

One donor has already stepped up to help the team of sixth-grade girls go to the other competitions. Isaac “Bubba” Valdez has paid for the girls’ registrations. The girls are also getting sponsor shirts. But the other three teams still need funding, especially the team already heading to state. Martinez is looking for local businesses and individuals who are willing to sponsor the remaining teams.

Anyone interested in sponsoring the WJH robotics teams should contact Martinez.

Rachal Pinkerton may be reached via email at rpinkerton@suntribunenews.com.