As this week?Äôs Tri-County News goes to press, the Kimball Robotics team has arrived in Louisville, Ky., to compete this week at the VEX Robotics World Competition. Kimball is among 14 teams from Minnesota, and 500 teams from around the country and the world.
The Kimball team is actually the undefeated State Championship team. But they will start at zero with everyone else at Worlds.
This is the fourth year of Kimball?Äôs participation in the VEX Robotics program. It started with two students, and now they?Äôre up to five. The coach all four years has been Kevin Kieke.
Kieke set up the team like a corporation; he identified 25 ?Äúcorporate?Äù roles to be filled by the members of the team. His goal has been to include those students who are not necessarily mechanically inclined. The skills they learn fulfilling these varied roles are ones they can apply elsewhere in life ?Äì everywhere in life, actually.
Cole Anderson is a junior, and this is his first year. His homeroom teacher Cathy Grant encouraged him to join the team. He?Äôs not involved in other extracurriculars, but he loves Robotics. He and Mitch Jansky are the robot?Äôs drivers. (Everyone tries out as a driver, and the best ones emerge as the season progresses.) Anderson plans a career in the automotive or electronics industry. He says the biggest challenge can be thinking through everything you do, and staying calm and focused during the ruckus of the competition. ?ÄúIt gets really loud in there,?Äù he adds.
Charlie Meyer is in eighth grade and this is his second year on the team. He pretty much single-handedly started Kimball?Äôs middle school team this year as a spin-off from the high school team, and is their coach. He was amazed at how many kids (13 signed up) wanted to do this. ?ÄúIt was an honor to help guide them through robotics and to teach them: what we learned from and what we can do next year, to do it better and to do it more efficiently,?Äù he said. Under his leadership, the brand-new middle school team made it to State competition, ?Äúand that was amazing,?Äù added Meyer; they reached fourth place.
Henry Meyer (Charlie?Äôs brother) is a sophomore, and this is his second year on the team. He took over programming from Ben Zipoy. The robots are programmed using either EZC or Robot C languages, and can either be drag-and-drop or coded from scratch. He is still enthralled that this team from a small town in the middle of nowhere is headed to international competition.
Cole Hilsgen is the CFO of the team. He?Äôs a junior, and this is his second year. He?Äôs helped to design and build the robot, but he?Äôs in charge of the fundraising, and he?Äôs the business manager for the team. There is currently about $7,000 in components in the high school robot, and another $5,000 in the middle school robot. All the needed funds came from local businesses, as donations. Hilsgen sent out a mailing of about 65 letters this year, and they have corporate sponsors as well, including 3M and Ziegler Cat. With an entry fee of $50-100 each, the team participates in about 5 to 10 of the 25 or so competitions each year. Each competition helps them qualify, and better prepares them for State competition. Teams earn points for things other than achievement of competition goals, too, like website, team effectiveness and energy.
Carter Lommel is a sixth-grader on the new middle school team. His job is to help build the robot, and he?Äôs also the webmaster for the team?Äôs website. His father is an electrician, so he?Äôs always been interested in robots and electricity. Lommel says it?Äôs sometimes a challenge working together instead of horsing around.
Mitchell Jansky is a junior in his second year on the team. He is one of the two drivers, and he?Äôs also helped to design, build and fundraise for the team. He plans to study mechanical engineering at North Dakota State University. Communicating with alliance teams is a challenge for Jansky, one that will be even greater with international teams in the mix.
A part of their fundraising efforts is designing, manufacturing and selling a fidget. Utilizing the school?Äôs 3D printer, they print a gadget that is essentially four connected rings with skateboard bearings inside each. It?Äôs relatively silent when fidgeted with, and helps to increase the focus level of kids with ADD and ADHD. It can help relieve stress and anxiety of anyone, actually. They come in six colors, and they can?Äôt keep up with demand.
Cole Hilsgen (left) and driver Mitchell Jansky demonstrated their robot and the task it needs to perform: pick up stars and blocks and drop them over a wall. Staff photo by Jean Doran Matua.
Coach Kieke is there to guide the teams, but he holds them responsible for themselves. He?Äôs grateful for great support from parents, as team members have worked on the robot nearly every day during the season. He also thanks Cathy Grant for helping with team-building, which took about 5-6 weeks.
Kieke explained that each member found their roles on the team by trial and error. While everyone wants to build or drive the robot, not everyone is good at it, and there are many other needed roles on the team.
Kieke?Äôs biggest fear is that 50 kids show up for Robotics at the beginning of the year. Then again, that might be a good problem to have.
Kieke has been in engineering and manufacturing for more than 30 years, and he?Äôs pleased to see young people discovering these careers. He loves to see their smiles and pride when they compete and it works. He has figured out that students tend to go into careers for which they have mentors in high school, and engineering and manufacutiring are often under-represented there.
One unique aspect of Robotics, as compared to sports, is that teams can win at a number of things throughout the season. ?ÄúVery few teams don?Äôt ever win,?Äù he said. Qualifying matches at tournaments are randomly selected, and have no bearing on performance before that point.
Competition begins in Louisville with practices Wednesday afternoon, April 19. The opening ceremony is at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, and qualifying rounds begin at 2:30. Finals will end by 6:15 p.m. Saturday. Check vexrobotics.com as competitions will likely be live-streamed there and elsewhere. (We?Äôll post links and results as we learn them on our Facebook page.)