AHS students Samir Masood and Alex Podorov, right, talk about strategy with Qatar Peters shortly before Austin starts its second round of competition. -- Trey Mewes/trey.mewes@austindailyherald.com

Austin High team competes in regional tourney

Though Austin High School’s Robotics team may not have won a regional competition, AHS students completed another successful FIRST Robotics regional tournament.

The Furious George robot gets ready to shoot a basket during Austin's second round at the FIRST North Star Regional Competition Friday.

The action was fierce, as Austin’s team, the Furious George, placed 26th out of 63 teams in the Minnesota North Star Regional Tournament, which took place Friday and Saturday at Mariucci Arena at the University of Minnesota — Twin Cities. That means Austin’s program, a Minnesota State High School League-sanctioned activity, narrowly lost out on the chance to make the MSHSL State Tournament.

Since December, students across Minnesota have studied and worked to make a robot that could drop a levered plane to grab the little basketballs sitting there, shoot those basketballs into various nets, and then climb onto the plane to finish the round.

“It was pretty exciting,” said Samir Masood, AHS senior. Masood wrote computer programming code and piloted the robot for this year’s competition. Piloting the robot means he has to input code and directions while coach Mark Raymond watches the competition, relaying instructions back to Masood.

“I have to concentrate on the robot,” Masood said. “Raymond watches the floor so I can focus on what I’m doing.”

Austin’s Robotics Club and Principles of Technology classes prepared well for the competition, completing their robot in mid-February. Yet the team ran into a few snags at the competition.

Austin students built their robot with a wooden arm to drop the levered plane, which has a single fulcrum point. Yet the regional tournament rules called for the arm to be made of aluminum, which flew in the face of Austin’s original instructions.

Since part of the tournament’s scoring measures how well students adapt and thrive under pressure, Austin rebuilt the with a twist: Because it takes almost three times the pressure for an aluminum arm to push the plane as opposed to a wooden arm, students built a shorter arm which they hoped to use while pushing their robot forward, creating enough pressure to drop the basketballs.

“We’ll change that later,” said Coach Ryan Stanley.

Though Austin lost the ability to climb the plane, AHS students were confident in their robot’s other skills.

“We kind of knew everything else we had to do,” said Joe Grabau, AHS sophomore.

The Furious George performed well in the opening rounds Friday, working with other robots to score baskets. AHS students were pleased with how their robot responded during competition.

Though the team narrowly missed the state tournament, previous teammates see a lot of potential in Austin’s robotics abilities. Jay Wilson, a junior majoring in biochemistry at the U of M, usually stops by the tournament every year. Wilson was one of the founding team members when Austin first competed in 2009, and he’s seen the team tackle more complex robotics problems every year since.

“Our original robot was more compound compared to the last couple of years,” he said. “It gets a little bit better every year.”