Service, Success, and Inspiration: The Story of Harding Academy Robotics at Arkansas Rock City Regio
Team 3937 Breakaway’s first regional competition took place in Week 2 of the FIRST Robotics season. We joined 54 other teams in the Barton Coliseum to compete for the title of the Arkansas Rock City Regional 2018. The regional was held March 8-10. We had high hopes to win first place, but we knew that the road to the Arkansas and world championship would be tough.
Each year the Arkansas regional competition is exciting and filled with activity; 2018 was no exception. Although there are many details I could share, in this post, I will focus on three honors that blessed the Harding community.
First, Harding University received the Volunteer of the Year Award from Arkansas FIRST. John Novak presented the beautiful trophy pictured below to the president of Harding University, Dr. Bruce McLarty.
It was exciting for us a team to hear the announcement. Many of Harding’s faculty, staff, parents, and alumni volunteer each year at the Rock City regional as well as the FLL qualifier hosted at Harding Academy. In addition, Harding Academy hosts the off season Ozark Mountain Brawl and the FRC kick-off. These events alone demand a small army of volunteers, many of whom are part of Harding. Furthermore, Harding has been a big supporter of both Arkansas FIRST as well as Harding Academy robotics. I am convinced that Harding’s involvement in FIRST positions STEM in Arkansas in such a way that will lead to educational and economic enhancement of our state. It was a privilege and an honor to be part of the Harding family when Meredith Novak, president of Arkansas FIRST, announced Harding University as the recipient of the 2018 Volunteer of the Year Award.
The press release on Harding University’s news site included this quote from Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin: “By sponsoring events, providing volunteers and partnering with FIRST Robotics, Harding University has demonstrated a strong commitment to teaching students about robotics, mathematics and engineering. These skills will be critical in developing the workforce needed to fill the jobs of tomorrow, and I’m thankful for Harding University’s commitment.” Dr. McLarty said the following in the same press release: “... our involvement in Arkansas FIRST has become an energizing component of our growth toward STEM excellence, and robotics has provided an exciting new arena in which our students can work in teams, compete and excel.”
The second major honor that we enjoyed at Rock City was that our team for the first time in Breakaway’s history won the Engineering Inspiration Award. The firstinspires.org page on awards explains the EI award in this way: “Celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization and community.” Not only does the EI award qualify the winning team for “worlds,” the FIRST Robotics Championship in Houston, Texas, but it also comes with a $5000 grant from NASA that pays for our team’s entry fee to the championship.
As the lead mentor for the Chairman’s Award and Marketing, I would like to commend our “Charketing” team as well as all the Breakaway members who have participated in our outreach programs year after year. Chairs Dylin Gay and Anna Westbrook have worked diligently with their departments to ensure that Breakaway’s message is more than about robots and even more than STEM. Congratulations to the entire “Charketing” team: Dylian Gay, Anna Westbrook, Liz Fisher, Will Katon, Sienna Patten, Julianne Baker, Maryella Baker, Jason Alana, and Drew Katon.
Our goal is to help students in Arkansas as well as students around the world to recognize their potential for personal and community development by understanding better the natural processes and structure that God has made in his created order. Bringing honor and glory to God is the goal, and our STEM message is the process by which we help others know God and his creation better. The result, we believe, is improved lives both physically and spiritually.
Breakaway’s third accomplishment at Rock City was that we were Finalists in the PowerUp robot competition. This year’s game centers on 1980s style arcade games. Two alliances of three robots each attempt to stack yellow cubes on field elements. The faster and more consistently the robots place cubes on the lower “switch” or higher “scale,” the more points they earn. At the end of the game, teams may climb on an 18 inch bar that’s on the side of the scale in the middle of the field. You might ask, how do three robots climb a single bar? That’s part of the challenge! It’s an exciting game. To view the official PowerUp game animation that explains the game and the rules, click here.
Breakaway is always one of the strongest teams at Rock City. This year we rose to the top of the rankings early in the qualification rounds. Although our number 1 ranking was short lived, we only lost two games and finished 3rd going into the elimination round. As predicted, top seed 3310 Black Hawk Robotics (Heath, TX) chose team 16 Bomb Squad (Mountain Home, AR) as their first choice for their alliance. Their third selection was 7123 MVE Tin Men, from Mount Vernon, Arkansas. Since Bomb Squad finished 2nd, their being chosen by Black Hawked moved us to the 2nd seed captain position. Our first pick was 364 Team Fusion from Gulfport, Mississippi, and our third alliance partner was team 4576 Red Nation Robotics from Knoxville, Tennessee. We knew that the first seed partnership of Bomb Squad and Black Hawk would be tough to beat because they both had ramps for “piggy-backing,” which meant that their alliance would be able to double climb on the scale at the end of the matches. No other teams were able to demonstrate successful double climbs better than those who drove onto Bomb Squad’s ramp.
What most of us didn’t realize, though, was that Team Fusion had a secret weapon. They had a “buddy-bar” that was a perfect match for our robot’s hanging device. If they would climb the scale first and release the attached bar, we could hang on their bar with ease, resulting in both robots' lifting off the ground and earning points for the alliance. Their surprise buddy-bar made its debut in the first round of the eliminations. Given that most of us had given up hope that we would be able to match the climbing duo of Bomb Squad and Black Hawk, our fans exploded with excitement when our alliance was able to hang two robots. Now, the game was on. Click here view this exciting match.
The Breakaway, Fusion, and Red Nation alliance sailed smoothly through the rest of the eliminations to the finals. Just as we expected, the 1st seed alliance proceeded to the finals, although they did drop their first game in the semi finals to teams 323 Lights Out, 6055 Boss, and 3337 Panthrobotics. This match up of Bomb Squad and Black Hawk versus Breakaway’s alliance was a rematch of last year’s face-off in the Rock City finals. I wish I could report that the matches were close to the last second or even made it to three games, but at the end of the day, the top seed team beat the 2nd seed alliance. Although the regional ended in a game loss for Breakaway, by making it to the finals, both Breakaway and Fusion qualified for the FIRST Robotics Championship with wildcards. After it was announced that Breakaway won EI, thus qualifying for the world championship, our wildcard was passed along to Red Nation Robotics. All three teams of the 2nd seed alliance qualified for the world championship in Houston, Texas, April 18-21. We are pleased that all of our alliance partners will be in Houston, and we are thrilled to be returning to “worlds” for the 6th time in our 7 years as a team.
The Arkansas Rock City Regional this year was a huge success for the Harding Academy Robotics program, team Breakaway, and all members of the Harding community. We play to win, but we live for God. May our successes and challenges bring glory and honor to him!
This week Breakaway competes at the Bayou Regional in Kenner, Louisiana. We'd love for you to join this free event at the Ponchatrain Convention & Civic Center or follow the live streaming at thebluealliance.com.
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