The Bolles robotics team Static Discharge, represented by seniors Jayan Deshmukh, Jay Manohar, and Meghanne Posick, competed in the Canadian Rockies Premier Event from July 25-27. The team brought home the first place Control Award and fourth place Offensive Power Ranking (OPR), while also setting a brief world record in points earned.
“It was an incredible opportunity to represent Bolles at the international level,” Posick said. “We were honored and proud to wear the Bolles name while competing against top teams.”
To qualify for the international competition, teams must perform well at their state competitions and are then chosen to represent their region. Last year’s theme was “Into the Deep.” Teams had to create robots that navigate through an area to extract as many cubes as possible in two minutes.
Static Discharge was the first team representing Bolles to qualify for the Canadian Rockies Premier Event. They were one of the smallest teams in attendance, with a total of three members, as opposed to most teams with 15+ members.
“We like to have smaller teams where you have more of a role in the robot,” Manohar said. “It takes a lot more time, but it’s a lot more fun and rewarding.”
Static Discharge ended up rebuilding their robot between states and the international competition. “We maxed out the capabilities of the first robot, and we want to push our limits to be able to score as high as possible to be the best team in Florida,” Manohar said. “We designed a new mechanism that gave us more scoring opportunities, allowing us to score faster.”
This newly invented mechanism, including a single button with preprogrammed directions, saved the team time throughout their matches, allowing them to ultimately collect more cubes and score more points.
Earlier in the season, Static Discharge, paired with other Bolles team Mischievous Mechanics, set a world record with 266 points earned. “We were randomly paired with them and then we both played the best match of our lives,” Deshmukh said.
While this milestone was very big for the team, the record only held up for about a month. Regardless, the team was very excited leading up to their upcoming matches.
At the competition, Static Discharge faced many challenges and continually worked to fix and improve their robot. “The team from Montana was helping us fix our robot at the meet. We were sawing down parts of our robot,” Manohar said. “Sparks were flying.”
Such situations are common at robotics events, as robots are constantly breaking and being rebuilt. “There was a lot of tape and zip ties on our bot,” Deshmukh said.
Regardless of the setbacks, “We were mostly just having fun were in a good position,” Manohar said. “There was definitely some stress, but it was good stress,” Deshmuk said.
At the Canadian Rockies Premier Event, Deshmukh, Manohar, and Posick focused on making sure their robot was in the best condition and position to compete. They perfected their robot through constant practice runs and tweaking the bot prior to matches.
“This year, we developed something that has never been done before in automation… you press one button and it basically drives and scores itself,” Deshmukh said.
This method even saved Static Discharge during one competition against another team, as its automation allowed for a quick manual recovery by Manohar after the bot collided with another team. “I have manual control just in case the automation doesn’t work,” Manohar said, which came in handy.
Static Discharge started the competition ahead of all the other teams, as they generated the most points and placed first in OPR (Offensive Power Ranking) on the first day of the competition. “We smashed it,” Mahohar said.
“One of the awards that we won was the first place Control Award, which was based on the robot’s software. It’s using software to enhance robot driving and function,” Manohar said. “Basically, we had the best coder,” who was Deshmukh.
Static Discharge made it to the quarterfinals when one of the axles on their bot broke.
This year, the team is working on simplifying their design attack. “We’re trying to design our bot to have fewer parts, which means fewer things that can go wrong,” Deshmukh said. However, when things do go wrong, “It’s usually an easy fix, but it’s hard to plan for. With experience, you start to be able to know which points are going to move and probably break.”
The seniors on Static Discharge look to help future Bolles teams reach the same level. “Many of our seniors are sharing their knowledge of CAD (Computer-Aided Design), coding, building, and outreach with the younger generation through camps, coaching other teams, and recruiting more young members to join our team,” Posick said.
The team hopes to qualify at an international competition again this year. “We have really a good shot and a good team,” Manohar said.
“Seeing the fruits of our labor was very fulfilling, especially at such a high level, and we hope to keep achieving it,” Posick said. “Getting to interact with many teams that are just as dedicated to robotics was a very invigorating experience.”
