Wellwood robotics team gears up for regionals

A number of budding Fayetteville-Manlius center college engineers will quickly have one other likelihood to display their answer to the vitality disaster.

Final month, Wellwood Center Faculty’s robotics membership competed within the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) occasion “Super Powered,” which challenged taking part college students to design, construct and code a robotic that may enhance how renewable vitality is saved and distributed inside the group.

College students should construct the robotic upfront of the competitors, which was held at Pine Grove Center Faculty and hosted by Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES. Every taking part team’s robotic should autonomously full a sequence of missions on the occasion, which for this 12 months’s FLL occasions are referred to as vitality journeys. The robotic earns factors primarily based on the way it collects and delivers vitality to and from numerous sources throughout every vitality journey.

After researching the consumption and waste of electrical energy, Wellwood’s team in preparation for the occasion selected to create a robotic that makes use of lightning rods and lightning jars to seize and switch vitality, and a supercapacitor, which is a tool that shops and releases {an electrical} cost shortly.

Wellwood’s robotic was in a position to efficiently navigate six challenges through the January FLL occasion. The journeys required robots to push, pull and elevate, or carry out a mix of those actions. A pair of judges evaluated not solely the robots, however the analysis and objective behind every undertaking. Every pupil team frolicked explaining their undertaking through the presentation portion of the occasion.

Attributable to their favorable efficiency, Wellwood’s robotics team acquired the FLL Engineering Excellence Award and earned a spot within the FLL New York state regional competitors, which is ready to happen Feb. 18 in Buffalo.

“Our team was brought together by our coaches who have taught us so much on our journey to victory,” mentioned Wellwood robotics pupil Sven Chiroiu-Gozman. “We have found friendship in our shared interests of engineering and robotics. We also have the will to win the competition which binds us like nothing else.”

The next college students are taking part on this 12 months’s robotics team: Sven Chiroiu-Gozman, Adrian Kmiecik, Noah Kopiasz, Finn Service provider, John Morey, Thomas (Tommy) Niland, James (Jim) O’Brien, Jack Inventory, Vinnie Wang and Evelyn Whipps. The team is suggested by head coach Brooke Ebersold and assistant coach Steve Carbone.

Wellwood Center Faculty’s robotics team. Wellwood Center Faculty sixth-grade college students James O’Brien (left) and Thomas Niland put together the team’s robotic for competitors.