Turbo Trojans Focus on Speed, Simplicity in Robotics Competition

After having a few technical difficulties during the FIRST Robotics Detroit District Competition on Friday and Saturday at Wayne State University, the ended the competition seed 29.

In total, Robotics team, the Turbo Trojans, won three rounds, lost seven and tied in two. The two head mentors for the Turbo Trojans Jim Kiefer and Ryan Brinks said they started off strong both days, but after some mechanical malfunctions and programming issues were unable to compete at the best of their ability.

“I’m a little disappointed, not in the team’s performance but with the technology but that’s what happens sometimes,” Kiefer said. “We’ve learned some things today.”

One of the electrical components stopped working early on Friday and there were times when the team’s robot wouldn’t work at all, but the students persevered through their frustration to fix the problems and make it drivable.

There were 39 teams in total participating in the game LogoMotion at the competition. For each qualifying round robots were matched up three to a team or “alliance” and competed against another alliance. Teams scored points when robots picked up inflatable tubes with their robotic arms and placed them on raised pegs.

Inflatable tubes were in the shapes of triangles, circles and squares — what the FIRST logo is made of — and teams were awarded points according to how many logos they could create. Teams were also given the chance to score points at the end of each round by racing a minibot up a pole.

“The game was interesting; challenging but possible,” freshman team member Olivia Tokarski said.

Brinks plans to work past the struggles and hopefully fix any glitches by their next competition beginning April 1 in Troy at the FIRST Robotics Troy District Competition. He said the team has full potential and many of the teams were looking at them to choose for alliances in the elimination rounds.

“The team seems pretty focused on fixing what needs to be fixed,” Brinks said.

The 19 Turbo Trojans spent six weeks working on a robot that weighed 114 pounds. It was built to focus on a super fast minibot and the arm had a simple design to it.

“We didn’t want things to get too complicated with too many moving parts, so with our arm simplicity it has kind of alleviated some of the problems that other teams are having with control,” Brinks said.

According to Steven Carpenter, a 16-year-old junior on the team, their minibot, when properly deployed, could reach the top of the pole in 2.7 seconds, which was one of the teams most impressive qualities.

“I think for our second year as a team we’re doing pretty well and it’s our first competition this year too,” Carpenter said.