In The News: Newberg robotics team tinkers toward state meet

Written by: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic 

All four teams will compete for bids at qualifying tourney Saturday

Despite the cancellation of several ORTOP First Tech Challenge league meets due to poor weather, the robotics teams at Newberg High School feel more prepared for competition than ever.

While that has meant fewer matches to learn the strengths and weaknesses of their bots, extra practice and building time seems to have more than compensated for that loss.

The fact that all four Newberg teams — Bulletproof, Iron Men mark2, Beta Pi and Kronos — advanced out of qualifying tournaments over the past two and a half weeks is evidence of that and they're all hoping to repeat that success this weekend at state-qualifying tournaments.

"Sometimes we spend two or three hours practicing versus years before it's the night before when everything comes together and you get to practice for half an hour and then had to go home," Bulletproof member Garrison Peacock said.

All four teams have focused their designs and strategies around the shooting portion of this year's game, Velocity Vortex, which involves launching whiffle balls up into the air and down through the bucket-like ends of a structure that sits at the center of the playing field.

At its qualifying tournament, the Iron Men mark2 selected Kronos for an alliance partner and as a pair they advanced to the finals by communicating well and staying out of each other's way as they successfully shot balls.

Kronos was also awarded the PTC Design Award for its community outreach project, a STEM camp it hosted for middle school students last month.

"A lot of them wanted more activities, so now we're planning another camp with the other teams and we're going to try to work with the school district to do a summer camp every year," Kronos member Quentin Comus said.

Most of Team Bulletproof returned from last year, but to help the program in the long term, returning members were split up and paired with younger students, resulting in the formation of the Beta Pi team.

Bulletproof advanced to the semifinals of its tournament in Hillsboro and advanced by earning the Motivate Award.

Beta Pi was not only a member of a winning alliance at its tournament, but also could have advanced for earning the Connect Award or placing second for the Inspire Award.

The teams are working to boost their scoring by improving their bot's ability to activate four beacons that light up either red or blue to correspond to each alliance in the match. More points will be also available to the Newberg teams should they be able to perform some of the end-game tasks this weekend.

"We've got a lot of potential here, a lot of good robots," Beta Pi member Alexander Berger said.