The Sage Publication is the student news site of Sage Creek High School in Carlsbad, CA

The Sage

The Sage Publication is the student news site of Sage Creek High School in Carlsbad, CA

The Sage

The Sage Publication is the student news site of Sage Creek High School in Carlsbad, CA

The Sage

Robotics Team is Coming Back for More in the 2019 Season

The hands behind the phone is junior Cole Savage, software lead of the Level Up team. He continues to update the most efficient way for their robot to locate the “waffle cubes” (a.k.a. yellow bricks). In order for their robot to know where it needs to go pick up the yellow bricks, the phone sends signals to it of where they are in relation to the field the robot is on and highlights what it needs to be picking up.
Photo courtesy of Charissa Feldman
The hands behind the phone is junior Cole Savage, software lead of the Level Up team. He continues to update the most efficient way for their robot to locate the “waffle cubes” (a.k.a. yellow bricks). In order for their robot to know where it needs to go pick up the yellow bricks, the phone sends signals to it of where they are in relation to the field the robot is on and highlights what it needs to be picking up.

Robots don’t move by themselves…at least not yet, but who are the students on our campus who are in control?  Here’s the scoop of what’s new and the rust that Sage Creek’s robotics teams retained at the beginning of their new season that has followed them throughout the previous year.

Last season they had three teams: Botcats, Level Up and Crow Force.

The Crow Force captain and junior robotics club president, Nathan Pereira, feels the team has grown a lot over the last three years.

“[We have] learned quite a bit this year,” Pereira said, “For the experienced members, reflecting on the mistakes of last year, we rebranded the team and improved our overall marketing. For the newer members, they learned the basics of their department.”  

Pereira also has high goals for this year’s club.

“Our goals for this year’s program is number one, to build the interest of students in STEM careers, and number two, have all teams make it to at least the regional tournament.”

[We want] to build the interest of students in STEM careers…

— Nathan Pereira

Every year brings changes and new things to explore. For robotics, some major changes occurred within their teams. The club operates in four different teams, each with three sections: Business, Outreach, and with a combined team of Hardware and Software.

Along with that, robotics has introduced some new elements for this year’s program.

“We got a new team… Python, which is run by Noe Avila. This year, we also have set and defined team budgets which will make acquiring parts we need slightly more difficult,” Senior Riley Hull explained.

A huge part of being in this program is participating in yearly competitions with other schools and districts.

The competition process and the step by step procedures that lead to the awards ceremony are a long process.

Competitions are two-parts, however, the first few competitions only have the first part. There is the robot challenge part, in which robots complete the task of the season and the judging part. Judging is a ten-minute process where the judges can ask questions or the team can present a prepared talk. This judging is used in deciding who gets the awards from that competition,” Hull said, “These awards, along with standings from the first part of the tournament, decide who gets to move along as the season continues and teams progress up the bracket.”

Even though the program has found great success and continues to grow, Pereira still sees some room for improvement in Crow Force.

The team can improve throughout the year by analyzing the current flaws in the team. For example, after trial and error, we came to [a] conclusion that our previous system that would supposedly lift our robot could not actually lift it,” Pereira explained, “Thus, we made a more powerful and efficient design that could do the job. There still is a lot more to do. We need to make our robot perform the tasks in this year’s robot game as quickly as possible.”

Seeing how this program has grown throughout the years and the success it’s had over time— more accomplishments are on the horizon for both the members of robotics and the program itself in the near future.

View Comments (2)

Comments (2)

The Sage intends for this area to be used to foster healthy, thought-provoking discussion. Comments are expected to adhere to our standards and to be respectful and constructive. As such, we do not permit the use of profanity, foul language, personal attacks, or the use of language that might be interpreted as libelous. Comments are reviewed and must be approved by a moderator to ensure that they meet these standards. The Sage does not allow anonymous comments, and The Sage requires a valid email address. The email address will not be displayed but will be used to confirm your comments.
All The Sage Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • D

    David KimMar 19, 2019 at 10:05 am

    The person who created the “waffle cube” locating program is basically carrying the robotics team. It takes many hours of experience to create a quickly responding deep learning program even for experienced programmers. The usage of deep learning libraries in python is slightly easier but still quite hard to implement in programs, Props to Cole Savage. The robotics team might be using Python because it’s easier but if they’re using python specifically because communication of code to embedded systems is advantageous for python, I’m kinda impressed! But of course if they’re using a RF controller for the robot, scratch that because C++ would be better for embedded to embedded system communication.

    Reply
  • N

    Nicholas E.Mar 13, 2019 at 9:55 am

    ‘Robots don’t move by themselves….”, but the first 30 seconds of a competition round is an autonomous phase in which the robot has to move by itself without user control.

    Reply