Cañada College Robotics Team Finishes Sixth at National Competition
Wed, 10 July, 2013 at 8:14 amThe Colts entered the competition as underdogs, but performed well
 |
| Cañada team members prepare Roush for competition |
The Cañada Robotics Team traveled to Atlanta, Georgia in late June and
proceeded to “pick some Georgia peaches” at a national robotics competition.
Cañada sent a team of four women and three men to the American Society
of Engineering Education Model Design Competition on June 26. The ASEE Model
Design Competition is a design/build robotics competition open to all freshmen
and sophomore engineering and engineering technology students at both 2-year
and 4-year colleges. The competition is held each year as part of the ASEE
Annual Conference. The goal of the competition is to give student teams an
opportunity to use the engineering design process to build an autonomous
vehicle to complete a specified task or to complete a specified track.
This year, teams were challenged to build a robot that could collect 12
orange colored golf balls representing ripe Georgia peaches and deposit them in
a peach basket in the center of the track. Each team had 60 seconds to collect
all the balls. In the first three trials, Cañada’s robot, named “Roush”, picked
up 10 of the golf balls and on the fourth trial picked up nine. The winning
robot was able to pick up all 12 golf balls and successfully deposited them in
the peach basket.
“Most of the competition was from the East Coast,” said Ray Lapuz,
professor of mathematics at Cañada and the advisor for the school’s robotics
club. “There were only a couple of other teams that had any women on their
team. We had four women and they were active participants. We certainly had the
most diverse team in terms of both race and gender.”
 |
| Roush collected 10 of the 12 golf balls in the first three trials |
Brigitte Rafnel, a Redwood City resident and team member who was homeschooled
for high school, said Roush was consistently collecting 11 of the 12 golf balls
in trial runs the night before the competition and occasionally had perfect
runs. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get any perfect runs during the actual
competition trials, but it was good to know the robot was capable,” she said.
“It was also very interesting to see the different ways other teams approached
the same task.”
Johana Atrizco, a Menlo Atherton High School graduate, said getting to
know the strengths of each team member and discussing the process of building
the robot will make the team stronger for next year. “I learned this is all
about teamwork,” she said. “There’s a saying I learned a while ago, ‘alone, we
might go faster, but together we can go further.’ That definitely hit home
during the competition.”
Abby Davis, a Sequoia High School graduate, said the entire competition
was a positive experience. “People were very generous with their ideas and
input for other teams,” she said. “It was a great atmosphere, not what comes to
mind when you think of a competition.”
Davis echoed Atrizco’s thoughts about the importance of communicating
and working as a team. “We had many discussions about how to make Roush (the
robot’s name) work more efficiently.”
For Vahram Antonyan, simply attending the competition was a dream come
true. “I was born and raised in Armenia where opportunities like these are not
seen,” he said. “Winning the competition is not everything. Just participating
was a great experience. I learned the importance of teamwork and sharing your
knowledge with others.”
Davis said her advice for future teams is simple. “Start early and be
prepared to put a lot time towards the robot,” she said. “Surround yourself
with hardworking, creative, and supportive teammates.”
Posted in: Engineering, Future Students, Mathematics, Studentexperiences