Two robotics games will have students from four area schools competing Saturday to show off their STEM skills. The second annual Warsaw Robotics Exhibition will start at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Career Center Gym at the Warsaw Area Career Center, with games lasting until approximately 2 p.m. Spectator admission is free. “We’ll be applying our science, technology, engineering and math skills in planning, building and formulating strategy to play the perfect game,” said WACC Engineering and Technology Dept. leader Abbi Richcreek. Multiple teams from WACC, Washington STEM Academy, Plymouth High School and Wawasee Middle School will compete in Salvage Operation and a Full Pull. Games at the exhibition change every year, she said. In 2014, the game was “Marbelous.” Competitors in Full Pull will pull as much weight with their robots as they can within a certain number of feet. Richcreek said weight is added to the pull until the robot can’t go forward anymore. “Think of a tractor pull but using robots to pull weights,” Richcreek said. Salvage Operation is a “giant Operation® game on a robot,” Richcreek said, with students’ robots removing robot parts from the cavities. In the game, competitors have two minutes to remove as many of the robot parts from the cavities as possible, according to WACC teacher Paul Zakaria. Students will be randomly picked to play a number of games. “There is a trophy for the winner,” he said. The 10 robot parts competitors will try to remove include the “shoulder bolt,” “strain gauge” and “ham spring.” If a competitor removes the conductive cube last and places it in the parts box without dropping it, they earn six points. “I think we should do pretty good this weekend,” said freshman Cameron Bowell. “My only concern is our robot will flip or the cortex will malfunction or just not work. That’s happened before, but we should be OK.” “Our students have been working on their designs the last three weeks,” Richcreek said. “This is their capstone for the course.” The entry fee for participants is canned food items to be donated to Combined Community Services. Richcreek said there is a Community Service Award for whoever brings in the most food items, calculated by weight. Concessions will be available at Saturday’s event. The exhibition is sponsored by the WACC Engineering and Technology Dept. and the Warsaw Robotics Club. “I appreciate Medtronic’s support in this competition,” Richcreek said.
