‘The hardest fun you’ll ever have’

Innovation is a vital part of any technological field. Students have to find ways to innovate to succeed in the Creston High School robotics club.

For the fourth year in a row, the Creston robotics club has found excellence and qualified for the national VEX robotics competition. Two of the five Creston robotics teams will travel to Orlando this summer to compete.

The club is coached by high school science teacher Heidi Lumbard, who guides students to resources to help them learn. She says she has a passion for teaching and a passion for robots.

“I’ve been a teacher for 18 years, so I’ve been 18 years addicted to robots,” she said.

The robotics club, composed as five teams, meet as a seminar club and compete under the VEX robotics rulebook. Lumbard also leads a 4H robotics team. She describes robotics as the “hardest fun you’ll ever have,” referring to the work that students do to prepare for competitions.

VEX robotics as a competition limits the tools available to students to what is included in that year’s robotics kit. Modifications to the items in the kit have rules, and very little outside materials can be used. It limits what students can do, but it means they have to be creative to get ahead of other teams.

These robots aren’t the fantasy ones some might think of. They’re the purpose-designed robots that are used in manufacturing and and engineering. As students build, they learn real-world skills.

“I’m hoping they’re getting life skills,” Lumbard said. “Like problem-solving, and time management, thinking outside the box, maybe they’ll want to be an engineer one day.”

During a competition, each student-designed robot is put into a “game.” Some factors of the game change from year-to-year, but the general outline is for the robot to collect items and place them in their corresponding team’s point area. The more items the robot can retrieve, the better the robot performs.

Students joining the robotics club start simple: they build a simple starter robot, called a “clawbot.” It gets the name from having a simple claw to pick up and move objects. The robot helps teach students the basics of designing and building. After that, the students will optimize their designs or start from scratch to try to score as many points as possible.

In later years, the students develop on these ideas and design their own robots to fit the new elements the game changes every year. How will the new item (which can be small balls, pyramids, discs, rings or others) be picked up by the robot? That’s just one question the students have to account for.

This year, two of Creston’s VEX Robotics teams were able to place second and third during the State TSA and VEX Robotics contest, qualifying the teams for nationals due to top three finishes.

Team S, composed of Stephen Sistad, Jenna Orr, Nevaeh Kerns-Potter and Paytin Smith, created a defensive styled robot that worked to block opposing robots from getting points. This strategy brought them to a second place finish.

This was the second year the group had competed together. They’ve known each other for longer outside of the robotics club, which helps them communicate. Jokingly, they describe themselves as “a dysfunctional family with a robot.”

“There’s confrontation and yelling,” said Kerns-Potter, “But then, we work together when it comes to the day of the competition.”

“We get what we need to do done,” added Orr.

Year-by-year, the students learn how to better control the robot, which is done through a remote control. How will the robot move? What button on the control will be set to each action? It can be complicated, but the students solve the problems themselves.

One phase of the match is the autonomous phase, where the robot runs a sequence of code to move without any driver control. The code is designed outside of the competition and functions as a way for the robot to get points without any other input.

Robots are scored based on how well they performed in the matches, as well as how the robot is described to the judges through verbal accounts from students and written journals of the design process.

All of the robotics teams at Creston are funded through outside resources, such as grants given to the clubs or through fundraisers. This year, Lumbard wrote a proposal for a Google-sponsored grant which awarded funding for all five VEX robotics teams.

The teams build in the fall, designing and readying the robot for competitions in the winter. Time to work on their robots is limited for Creston students, averaging about 45 minutes a week. Scheduling time can be tricky with students in multiple activities.

The major learning curve comes during competitions, giving students long days comprised of 30 matches over five hours to limit test their robot.

“It’s intense,” Lumbard said. “The learning that happens in that short amount of time is astronomical.”

During a match, students are paired up in an “alliance” with another randomly-assigned team’s robot, having to work together to win their match. Students learn from the robots they are paired up with, as well as the robots they end up competing against. Communication between teams to create a strategy is essential for performing well in the match.

Breaks between matches are small, giving three-four minutes between each match for teams to communicate with their alliance and repair any damage the robot from the previous match.

Lumbard, by rules of the competition, can’t get too involved with the design process for the students’ robots. She can give resources to students to help facilitate their learning, but the process is still student-led.

“Students do the work,” she said. “I’m really mean about that. Go figure it out! I know how to do it, but that’s not the point. It’s not Miss Lumbard’s robot.”

However, Lumbard is proud and confident in the program she leads. Her students are able to compete in multiple competitions, which gives the students an edge over most programs.

The qualifying teams will compete at nationals from June 26-30 during the 2024 National TSA Conference at Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Florida.

To support the Robotics club and help them travel to nationals, email Heidi Lumbard at hlumbard@crestonschools.org for more information. The club is also participating in a fundraiser with Pizza Ranch selling bake-at-home pizzas and arcade cards. Orders are due May 8.

Stephen Sistad, Jenna Orr, Nevaeh Kerns-Potter and Paytin Smith placed second for VEX Robotics at the State TSA and VEX Robotics contest. Hope Woods, Liz Buchanan and Emily Buchanan placed third. Orr, Kerns-Potter and Smith also placed second in the Board Game Design competition.