Robotics works on new ideas, prototypes

Ayden Boyles, Staff Writer

The Robotics Club held a Quick Build night, on Oct. 1, where they proposed changes for the robot’s grabber arm. They held another last Monday, were they split into different teams to dismantle the grabber arm of last year’s robot, reorganize its electrical box, and some learned how to use GitHub- a software building platform.

There was also a meeting held yesterday, where the teams started building the new grabber arm. The Quick Build nights includes drawing up plans, presenting their ideas in front of the group, and then testing those ideas.

On the Oct. 1 meeting, the club saw that numbers were lower than last year; however there were more experienced members present, allowing for a more efficient Quick Build.

“It’s better to have a team with more experience. Now they’ve had a chance to go through a design process and they understand some of the steps they need to take in order to make a design, understand some of the flaws from their previous work and can adapt better to changing situations and create more dynamic designs and be more creative,” Tyler Hieber, Mechanical engineer at K-state, and member of MHS’ first robotics team, said. ”And you combine that with the fresh minds from the new members and… it creates a unique diversity in dynamic in the design process that you couldn’t really get with the pure young team without any experience or if you get a team that’s just a bunch of older members and not taking any input from the younger ones, you end up with people just wanting to repeat the same things over and over again.”

The robotics club also ensures that safety is their number one priority. Members, before being able to participate in any Quick Builds, had to successfully complete a safety training session with one of the group’s leaders.

“The most important part of this training session is that first robotics takes safety very seriously. Before students can begin to create their designs, they first have to learn how to do that safely,” Emma Detrixhe, robotics adviser, said. “We have a safety officer and have to record any incidents that occur throughout the year.”

The Oct. 1 meeting was the last phase of the robotic club’s preseason. The club before October, has held Quick Build nights for their programming and electrical sub teams, and the Oct. 1 meeting was based on the mechanical side. Quick Builds help the team be ready for basic programming, soldering, and prototyping.

“[Quick Builds are important] to get people in the mindset of building the robot and how we have to come up with an idea, prototype it, figure out what’s going to work the best, and then create the final design,” Alec McGlynn, Robotics Team captain, said.