Servo - March 2008

RUMBLE AT THE R CK:

BotsIQ Gone Varsity

● by Michael Bastoni

The Plymouth North High and Plymouth South High School Robotics Teams sponsored a BOTSIQ 15 lb competition. The Plymouth North High school engineering class, under the direction of teacher Michael Bastoni and welder James Stevens, designed and constructed a 12’ Octagonal battlebox. The 1/8” steel floor is supported by eight sections of welded 3” structural channel aluminum frames. The walls are 5’x5’ x 3/8” polycarbonate framed by 1-1/4” aluminum square tube frames. The roof is 3/8’ poly and aluminum set on an approximately 1: 6 slope. This is the first BOTSIQ arena of this design in the country and it was shipped to Florida and used at the 2007 National BOTSIQ championship.

The Event

and an homage to the early days of Marc Thorpe and the West Coast crazies who birthed the sport. We set up a 14’ TV screen in the auditorium and pumped in live video and sound from inside the arena so folks could sit in movie theater comfort and hear and watch 15 lb fighting robot action, which looked and sounded like 300 lb combat robots on the big screen. The live and video visual experience was enhanced since we shut down the room lights and lit only the BattleBox, and pumped amplified sound into the arena room, as well as the auditorium. Little bots got real big!

We had both high school and college teams from as far away as Florida and New Jersey.

Lara Spinelli, driver for bot Good Knight of the Bergen County Academy robotics team.

Following the 2007 BOTSIQ championship, we announced the desire to host a combat robot event in Plymouth, MA. We were not sure how many robots would come since we made the announcement in the early weeks of October 2007, listing December 1, 2007 as the event date. We had hoped for 6-10 robots and expected that we could grow the event from there. We were amazed that 25 15 lb combat robots from 18 schools showed up ready to fight! We had only one forfeit throughout the whole day of combat.

The event went off without a hitch. The arena was set up in the center of the manufacturing shop surrounded by lathes, mills, and welding equipment, a perfect place for a combat robot event

Results

● First Place (Undefeated): “Good Knight” from Bergen County Technical School, NJ.

robots, and making the venue available to surrounding teams. In this way, engineering in general, and robotics in particular, can become in time varsity level competitive sports that will rival the status of other varsity sports programs. We didn’t nail a peach basket to an auditorium balcony ... we built a combat robot arena! This event will be held on a semiannual basis, made possible through the sponsorship of Entergy Corporation ( www.entergy.com), SolidWorks Corporation ( www.solid works.com), and GEARS Educational Systems ( www.gearseds.com).

The next Rumble at the Rock is scheduled for March 8th, 2008. SV

● Second Place: “The Hook” from WI.

● Third Place: “Juggernaut” from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA.

The 12’ Octagonal arena was designed and built by the organizers, sponsors and students at Plymouth North High School Engineering Program. Copies of these plans made by Mahuta Tool Corp ( www.mahuta tool.com) are available from BOTSIQ by contacting Nola Garcia at nola@botsiq.org