St. Cloud Hosting Regional Robotics Competition This Spring

(KNSI) – St. Cloud will welcome dozens of high school robotic teams for the Granite City regional.

The squads come from across the state, and even the world. One of those groups is from Upsala High School. Competitive robotics teacher Curtis Robertson says when the first week of April rolls around at the River’s Edge Convention Center, the teams will have put in months of work.

“Students are given a challenge in January, and then they have roughly seven to 10 weeks to design, prototype, build, program, [and] make a robot. And then following, they take their robot and what they’ve built, their solutions, to a competition.”

Every team, including Becker, Sartell, and Upsala, received a 140-page packet detailing this year’s challenge in January. Robertson explains there is an underwater theme to the challenge. “Our goal with our robots is to remove ‘algae’…16-inch kickballs from a structure in the center of the arena, and then we have to collect ‘coral,’ four-inch round PVC pipes that are 12 inches long, and place them on this center reef structure.”

The competition begins with a round robin phase featuring several matchups between two factions of three robots each. Wins help advance a school to the tournament finals.

Robertson encourages the public to attend. “Every regional event is free to attend. The Minnesota State High School League state tournament is also free to attend. You can just come on in. You can check out the entire arena, watch the gameplay that happens. And you can also go into the pits area and see the teams behind the curtain and how they work, and interact in the pit shop areas.”

The St. Cloud regional is run through FIRST Robotics. Robertson stresses that robotics is a different kind of varsity high school sport. There is a ton of cooperation. He cites instances where Upsala did not have a part needed to repair their robot on hand and was given it by another team as a gesture of goodwill. At other times, it was Upsala doing the helping out.

Robertson says the inclusive nature of robotics carries over to his squad. He wants everyone, whether they are builders, programmers, business students securing sponsorships, and marketing or communications. They all have roles in ensuring a successful result.

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