CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Let's pick up four stones and stack them on top of one another while placing them on a build plate. Sounds easy, right? Now, how about doing it all with a robot in less than two minutes, 30 seconds?

That was the challenge presented to the Thompson Falls robotics group this year. Together, the four-person team made light work of it at the annual Montana robotics competition held a couple weeks ago.

The squad was randomly paired with one of 35 other teams to jointly complete the task at hand for five rounds. Eric Nygaard, robotics coach and high school science teacher, emphasizes that the word "competition" is misleading, as the occasion is more of a "cooperative – working together" event.

"In the earlier years, we were the less capable of the two teams," said Nygaard, who began this robotic journey six years ago. "But in the last couple years we are either holding our own or we have been leading our alliance to victories."

In the robotic ring you will find a total of four teams, four robots and two partnerships. Students explained that they personally had one robot stacking the "rocks" while the other robot was collecting the material. "During one match, our alliance team's robot was not functioning," said Daniel Ryan, a senior robotics competitor. Nygaard thankfully added, "We did not have many malfunctions this year, we were just more prepared this year," which helped the Thompson Falls team recover from any unfortunate circumstances.

The team recalled one round in particular as being memorable. The town of Simms, Montana's RedNek Robotics team has won world championships, according to Nygaard, and we were faced competing with them. "We were like, 'Oh no!'," the students laughed. Team RedNek had quite a few problems with their robot and Thompson Falls ended up taking that round. "We came out on top!" Nygaard said, indicating how proud he was in his team's confidence and that they did not give up.

After scoring points in the initial five rounds, Thompson Falls placed 11th. Only the top finishing teams are allowed to move forward with an alliance team they personally chose to join them. Unfortunately, Thompson Falls was not selected. Nygaard commented that the alliance team is not necessarily selected because of placement alone, but sometimes one robot just works well with one of the top placing teams.

Unlike last year, when the team got their robot in working condition only hours before the competition started, Theral (the name given to this year's robot) was up and running four days before the competition.

Ryan, who was the teams' leading coder (computer programing that makes the robot function), shared that one of the biggest challenges the school faced this year was also the biggest for the robotics team. "The ransomware attack! We lost all our code from last year. It was terrible because I had already gone through and rewrote it for this year," he said with grief. "After the attack I had to build it from scratch because there was no infrastructure to build on." The positive side is that Ryan is confident the changes he made to the code will make it easier for next year's students to work with, as he graduates this year and will be off pursuing a career in the computer programming world.

Nygaard shared a few tidbits about how Montana as a state has participated in the robotics competition since its birth 15 years ago. Ronan, Montana and Simms have produced world champions. "Montana has produced several world champions, so we punch above our weight and produce some good teams," he said.

In all, Nygaard estimates Theral to have over $3,000 in parts and equipment invested in it. He said GEAR UP is a large supporter of robotics through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) grant funding. He added that the school also helps financially, but the bulk of his robotic-related expenses are carried by GEAR UP.

Lastly, the entire group agreed that there are two best friends in robotics. "Never underestimate the power of Velcro and zip ties," concluded Nygaard.