The robot on top

Lake Monsters win the FIRST Oregon Regional Robotics Competition

By Rebecca Mayer

The Lake Oswego Review, Mar 13, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Vern Uyetake / Lake Oswego Review

Senior Seth Troisi, left, acts as the commander by determining strategy for the Lake Monsters during the FIRST Oregon Regional Robotics Competition. Sophomore Jake Espinosa and junior Aiden Doege control the team robot, which won first place along with two other teams in their alliance. The Lake Monsters represent both Lakeridge and Lake Oswego High Schools and are competing for the second year. For a complete story, see page A18.

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The spotlight might not shine on them as often, but the Lake Monster Robotics team is just as cool as a high school sports team. This past week, the team, which is in their second year of existence, took first place in the FIRST Robotics Oregon Regional Competition at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

FIRST, which stands for “For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,” is an organization dedicated to inspiring young people to become leaders in science and technology. The students spent six weeks building a robot to compete in this year’s challenge.

The Lake Monsters, which represents both Lakeridge and Lake Oswego High Schools, won in an alliance with Skunkworks Robotics of Aviation High School in Des Moines, Wash., and Issaquah Robotics Society of Issaquah High School, in Issaquah, Wash. The winning teams are eligible to proceed to the FIRST Robotics National Competition in Atlanta, Ga., from April 16-18.

Riverdale High School also had a team that won the Rookie All-Star Award qualifying them for the Atlanta competition, and Catlin Gabel School, which has three Lake Oswego residents on the team, won the Engineering Inspiration Award, also qualifying them for nationals.

The challenge

Each year, the competition features a different challenge that teams attempt to overcome with robots that they create themselves. This year, the Lunacy challenge honored the 40th anniversary of the historic NASA moonwalk.

Teams were required to use hard-plastic wheels so that traction would be limited on a low-friction playing surface, explained George Lippincott, a software programming mentor for the Lake Oswego team. “The Lake Monster team created a unique drive system to maximize traction and maneuverability,” he said. “This was a strong asset during the competition.”

The team had to build a lot of custom parts out of steel, said sophomore Greg Simpson. “We wanted to go bigger and bolder than last year.”

Each team had six weeks to design, build and program a robot weighing less than 120 pounds and measuring five feet in height. A basic kit of parts was provided and teams could supplement that with a limited amount of additional parts and materials.

The competition featured 54 robots from Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii competing in rotating alliances of three-on-three to collect “orbit balls” and deliver them to the opponents’ trailers. There are three types of orbit balls worth various amounts of points.

The human players can shoot orbit balls into opponent’s trailers from the sidelines. The robot handlers attempted to maneuver away from opponents’ attempts at shooting “moon rocks” into their trailers.

Junior Aiden Doege and sophomore Jake Espinosa operated the robot during the game. Senior Seth Troisi acted as the commander, helping with strategy, and senior Josh White was the one shooting the moon rocks.

Each team plays seven matches, and then the top eight teams become “alliance leaders.” Those teams get to select the two other teams they would like to be aligned with. The Lake Monsters were chosen during the third round of alliance picks.

“This is the team’s second year and everyone was surprised that we could do so well,” said Lippincott. Last year, the team placed 15th.

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