Force Green robotics team competes at Worlds

jamie PARK

Bright lights, themed costumes and a valuable learning experience.

From April 19-22, the Force Green Robotics Team and 192 more teams from across the world competed in the First World Championships in Houston.

Senior Shravya Sunkugari, who is part of Force Green’s outreach and documentation team, said the large number of teams were intimidating, but she enjoyed the chance to meet possible mentors and talk with other teams that were passionate about robotics.

“The creativity and diversity in robot design and outreach projects was crazy compared to State,” Sunkugari said.

Force Green qualified for Worlds through the Missouri State Championships, where they were awarded the second place Inspire awards. There are three Inspire awards given to the best overall teams in the competition, based on categories such as programming, public outreach, design process and technical communities.

Winning the second place Inspire awards gained Force Green the third qualifying spot to compete at Worlds, where they competed in the First Tech Challenge (FTC) championship.

This year, the theme for FTC was PowerPlay, where the team’s robot, nicknamed Scarlett, competed against other teams by putting cones on different level poles.

Scarlett has a 3D printed claw, which is used to pick up the cones. The robot’s movements are preprogrammed for 30 seconds, but the rest of the game uses a telerobotic system, or control of the robot through a remote control.

Freshman Sneha Deo, who is a member of Force Green’s outreach team, said her favorite part of

Worlds was being able to interact with teams from different countries.

“I’ve learned so much about the different cultures from around the world, and while there were language barriers, it was certainly a cool experience,” Deo said.

Force Green won a third place Think award at the competition, recognizing the team’s expertise in the design process. Garrett Palmquist, team coach, said the team’s success is in large part due to their well-rounded capabilities.

However, while Palmquist assists his team with the design process and brainstorming, he leaves the actual creation and building of the robot to the students.

“FIRST defines the coaches as mentors,” Palmquist said. “We provide guidance, advice and coaching to the students, but they are the leaders of their efforts.”

Palmquist said he hopes to use the experience at Worlds to inspire ideas on expanding community outreach efforts. He hopes Force Green can connect with more business and technical professionals and look into setting up ongoing educational events with local schools or organizations.

The Force Green team also hopes to improve and simplify their robot design by creating a more efficient design process, which would leave more time to program and practice driving their robot. The team is also looking to improve specific components, such as arm type, based on the challenge for the upcoming season, which will be revealed in September.

Overall, Palmquist said he hopes the experience at Worlds will provide the team with motivation and inspiration.

“Something magical happens when you gather 1,000s of brilliant, creative and inspiring students in a building,” Palmquist said. “Even though they may be competing with each other, they are also making new friends, going out of their way to help each other, and forging memories and experiences which will stay with them for their lifetimes.”

Alice Liu, junior, placed fourth last week at the largest pre-college STEM competition in the world, the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

She was the first student from MHS to ever place at ISEF.

“People submit their projects to a regional or state fair, and if they advance, they all meet up at the giant convention in Dallas, where they present their projects to a panel of judges,” Liu said.

Liu’s project was a “Modified Nanoporous Gold Sensor for the Electrochemical Detection of Acetaminophen.”

“My topic was about a method to detect pharmaceutical pollutants, specifically acetaminophen, which is an ingredient in Tylenol,” Liu said. “So I used a chemical and monitored the current change to find out whether or not the pollutant was present.”

Liu’s project and presentation earned her fourth place in the American Chemical Society Education Division. There were more than 80 finalists in this category at ISEF.

Not only was this ISEF a competition, but it was also a place to learn about others’ STEM journeys.

“I wish I could have gone to more of the seminars they had where there was a panel of different people talking about their STEM journey,” Liu said. “It was a lot of fun and really cool meeting people from all around the world.”

Dr. Cathy Farrar, science teacher, is where Liu learned of ISEF.

Participants first have to compete locally and take either first or second place. Liu placed second in the St. Louis Science Fair, which qualified her for ISEF.

The presentation that competitors have to give is based heavily on self research.

“You have to be the one to come up with the question, to do all the work, to do all the analysis and then you compete at the local level and then you get a spot at ISEF,” Dr. Farrar said. “Then from all the people that get sent they have a selection process. There’s all kinds of reasons you can get disqualified from competing. You get past that hurdle, then you get to go to ISEF.”

Dr. Farrar stresses the importance of Liu’s project because when acetaminophen levels are high, it may increase the risk of liver damage.

She also shares her excitement for Liu’s accomplishments.

“It is like the biggest competition for science research at the high school level in the entire world,” Dr. Farrar said. “If all scientists were Alice, the world is in good hands with that because she’s awesome.”