VWHS hosts regional robotics competition

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The Van Wert High School gymnasium was awash with robots Saturday as hundreds of tech-crazy kids, teachers, and parents participated in the fourth annual Northwest Ohio Regional Robotics Competition

A total of 28 teams — more than 200 kids — from mostly Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, participated in the event, which was sponsored by Central Insurance Company, APT Manufacturing Solutions, and Ohio Northern University, who cover the approximately $2,000 cost. The competition is a qualifier for the Ohio state robotics competition in Columbus later this year.

Van Wert High School Robotics Team members put on the event, with Project Lead the Way teacher Bob Spath, who is also one of two coaches for the VWHS robotics team, noting the event takes a lot of volunteers and a lot of man-hours.

Spath said planning for the event begins about a week after last year’s competition ends, with the event coordinator for this year’s event, Zane McElroy, working with school staff and administrators to organize the competition.

“It takes a full year to get this planned, to secure the date, to make sure we can get the gym, to make sure the state knows that this is the weekend we want to do this,” Spath said, noting that event set-up and operation is done by volunteers, including engineers from local businesses who act as judges for the competition, which Spath said also sets a great example for local kids interested in engineering.

“It’s pretty awesome, because the kids can see ‘oh, you can be an engineer and be in Van Wert’,” Spath added.

Actual set-up began at approximately 10 p.m. Friday, following the Cougar boys’ basketball game with Shawnee, with about 20 volunteers helping set up the playing fields and related equipment.

“We got to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning, and then got up again at 6 to come back,” Spath said on Saturday.

For the second year in a row, the host VWHS Robotics Team also competed in the event, finishing in the top four of the competition. During the competition, robotics teams play in alliances, as well as earn points individually.

Spath said competing in its own program is great, but puts the local robotics team at somewhat of a disadvantage, since only three of its 13 team members are actually available to participate in the competition. The others are helping put on the event, which keeps them from scouting out the competition and helping with repairs and adjustments on the robot.

Other volunteers for the competition include recent robotics program graduates, who return to Van Wert to help out.

The competition includes two 12-by-12-foot playing fields. This year’s competition, called Relic Recovery, involved having robots pick up glyphs and place them in “crypto” boxes. This year, the “end game” — the last 30 seconds of each competition — involved picking up a relic and placing it outside the playing field. Spath said this is the first time robots have been tasked with play outside the playing field, calling the requirement “a very unique experience” and adding that not very many teams tried to complete the task during the local competition.

Spath said the VWHS team has included equipment on a secondary robot to accomplish the “end game” requirement, but had not ported the feature over to its primary robot before the local event.

“It will be ready by state competition in four weeks,” he noted.

Teams advancing to the state competition from the competition included VWHS and its USS Enterprise robot, WACO Aerobotics of Troy (Inspire Award winner), the Tech Titans of West Chester (winning alliance captain), Party Pandas from Sylvania (Inspire Award runner-up), and Broken Axels from Toledo (winning alliance first pick).

Spath said the partnership between the local companies and the robotics team has been fantastic — and crucial, considering the cost of sending a 13-person team to state and regional competitions: four hotel rooms, gasoline, and meals and jerseys for team members, some of whom are economically disadvantaged. Spath said the team also needed to purchase two new laptop computers this year.

Spath noted the VWHS team has been to competitions in Dayton, where it was second; and Pittsburgh, where it finished as the first alternate for the Pennsylvania state competition. The Ohio state competition is coming up in four weeks, with a possible return for the Pennsylvania state competition, if the winning team can’t make it.

VWHS’s robotics program is an offshoot of the Project Lead the Way pre-engineering program implemented by Spath 13 years ago. A biomedical program was developed a few years later, with the robotics program coming soon after that.

The Project Lead the Way and robotics programs have put VWHS on the map when it comes to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education. In its first attempt, a VWHS team won the second annual Makerfest STEM competition in Lima this year, where more than 1,400 students competed in 19 STEM-oriented events, while the Robotics Team has placed highly in a number of regional and national robotics competitions over the past few years.

The partnership between the school and local businesses is also spreading into other areas.

A CEO (Career Education Opportunity) program developed by guidance counselor Kerry Koontz now allows tech-oriented students and others to leave school for job internships with local companies.

The success of the VWHS STEM programs has also inspired similar programs in Lincolnview and Crestview, Spath noted, while Vantage Career Center partners with VWHS on the Project Lead the Way programs and has had internship programs pretty much since its creation in the mid-1970s.

“It’s really neat to see the opportunities we provide these kids,” Spath said, noting that many Project Lead the Way graduates have gone on to careers in science and engineering fields.