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Amidst growing competition, Powell High School’s robotics club’s Team 3189, also known as Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, competed at the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship …
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Amidst growing competition, Powell High School’s robotics club’s Team 3189, also known as Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, competed at the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship April 19-22 in Houston, Texas.
Competition has grown at both the state and international level and this year only one PHS team competed in Texas compared to last year’s three.
“They increased the number of participants from 160 to 192 and so they had more people there,” coach Joel Hayano said. “And there just seemed to be a lot better robots there this year. They broke it from two divisions to four divisions and so every division, they had some really tough robots in there.”
Hayano added that while the quantity and quality of robots has increased, the World Championship itself was similar to last year. Other teams, Hayano said, are purchasing and learning how to use higher end equipment on their robots which can often make a difference in the outcome of the competition.
“We’re competitive but to win, you really have to spend a lot of money and so we’re right in the middle,” Hayano said. “We don’t really compete and go there to win awards, we just really want to go there and try to win Wyoming and have a good time. So on that end we did really well.”
Team member Alan Crawford said that the team has improved since last year, and while some matches didn’t go according to plan they’ve already learned from the experiences and “we’re working on new technology for what we want to improve.”
Dexter Opps added that they have begun working on designs and plan to use the club’s CNC milling machine to make more functional parts. Team member Luke Legler made contacts with an Australian team who has the ability to manufacture aluminum parts. If the need arises the team would make the part for Powell High School for the cost of shipping.
“I thought it was like a really cool experience, just to go to Houston, and just be there in general,” Brighton Streeter said. “And the competition itself was really fun, there were a lot of crazy robots, and just walking around looking at all the robots that other teams from all over the world have made, I just thought that was kind of crazy.”
