robots

Bots IQ Team Scratch

Posted on by gshslionsdenadmin

by Grace Cardoni

The GS Bots IQ team is building the future of engineering one robot at a time. 

Bots IQ is a robot-battling competition created by the Pittsburgh Chapter National Tooling and Machining Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on the future careers of high school students.  

“They wanted kids to get interested in machining, building, electronics and robotics,” Bots IQ Adviser Mr. Matthew King said. “So they started a program in high schools and some middle schools.”  

Each team is tasked with designing and building a 15-pound robot based on the television show BattleBots. The average robot can cost more than $1,000 with all the high-tech parts involved. 

“The average bot, if you had to buy everything brand new and not reuse electronics, you would have over $1,000 in it,” Mr. King said.  

Students will be headed to the preliminary round, along with 65 other schools at Westmoreland County Community College on March 12. This marks the 19th anniversary of the team at GS.  

“We started around two years after the program began,” King said. “So, it’s been about 19 years now; I’ve been on it for 18.” 

However, this season looks vastly different from years past. After graduating their entire team last year, the program had to rebuild from the ground up with nine freshmen. 

A 3D model of the mock Robot created on Fusion 360.

Photo Courtesy: Brandon Pigza

“This year we had a team scratch, all of us are freshman,” freshman Bots IQ member Peyton Comer said. “It went pretty good with Mr. King since he’s done it previous years.” 

Although the team is made up of a brand-new group, many members had experience from their time in the middle school.  

“The reason I think they were interested the most out of everyone, is because they were on the team last year in the middle school,” King said. 

Although most of the team had taken part previously in middle school, they are running on a tight schedule with the new change. 

“We’ve been designing the parts, and we’ve been putting them together on the CAD program to see kind of if it fits together since October,” Comer said. “We haven’t actually built it yet, but the parts are being manufactured.” 

Students note that this year has proved to be much more challenging than their experiences before but nonetheless rewarding.  

“It’s harder, much more complicated,” Peyton said. “But it’s much better; we are all really looking forward to the final product; the process has been fun.” 

GSHS BotsIQ Finals 

Posted on by gshslionsdenadmin

By Kerrick Shaw 

Photo Courtesy: Mr. Matthew King

The GS BotsIQ team had a smashing close to their season at the BotsIQ Finals Competition. 

On April 26th, GS’ “Smacky, The Spinner Bot” advanced three rounds in the winner’s bracket before forfeiting due to terminal electronics issues. The competition took place at Penn West California University. 

“The point of the team is learning how to make something from scratch; from the design process to finished product,” GS BotsIQ Advisor Mr. Matthew King said. “You end up having to learn through failure a lot of the time; it takes a lot of hard work.” 

This year’s group of students consists of only four members: juniors Samantha Hanawalt, Jacob Penley, Aidan True and sophomore Rocco Himes. 

The team’s goal is to build a functioning 15-pound combat robot for battling against other similar bots, striving to destroy or disable its opponent. 

Photo Courtesy: Mr. Matthew King

“We spent from the beginning of the year to about mid-February building our bot,” True said. “We each have assigned roles to make everything easier; it’s all a big team effort.” 

Preliminaries took place at Westmoreland County Community College’s Student Achievement Center and were required before competing in the annual Finals Competition on April 26th and 27th. 

Each student is ambitious for next year’s season. A new and improved bot will be designed and built with the help of the industry partner General Carbide and Industry Advisor Mr. Mike Bulebosh. 

“I think it’s an exciting, positive experience, and a really great opportunity,” Himes said. “Because it was my first year being a part of the team, I learned a lot while programming and making the robot.”