After years of helping build the robotics program from scratch, OVS alum Leo Liang is returning to take part in Saturday’s inter-league robotics tournament in Palmdale, where 25 teams will vie for the opportunity to compete in the state regional meet.
But this time he’s not building the robots, he’s judging them.
After joining a robotics network for alumni of the competitions he took part in during high school, Leo received his refereeing credentials and accepted an invitation from OVS computer science teacher Christopher Westcott to take part in the first robotics meet of the season.
But he didn’t stop there. Leo will once again don the striped referee jersey on Saturday, flying in from the University of Michigan — where he is earning a computer science degree — just to help judge the inter-league competition.
“I wanted to give back to OVS as well as the FIRST robotics program, which has shaped me so much,” Leo said.
When Leo came from Lower Campus to high school, his genius was already the subject of much excitement among the Upper faculty.
His mastery of multiple programming languages, an undying respect for the jetliner, and the artful aeronautical engineering that allowed Leo to spend countless hours simulating and piloting numerous flight plans on his beloved flight simulator, gave Leo the basic skills he needed to help him thrive in the robotics lab.
But above all, the thing that stood out most about Leo was his knowledge of devices as simple as a motor and as complex as the processor in his surface pro, the same laptop he used to write tens of thousands of lines of code during his high school tenure.
What few people knew about Leo, however, was his lack of experience in robotics going into his freshman year, where he immediately took on an important role as programmer and robot builder.
The robotics program at Upper follows the guidelines of the First Tech Challenge, which is the third of four First robotics levels of competition. First Tech Challenge, or FTC, currently oversees 6,509 official teams in the 2019-2020 season, where OVS teams are working hard in the first year without their founding members, who include Leo and alum Ivy Sun, who is studying at UCLA.
“When I first joined robotics, I knew nothing about it, except some programming skills,” Leo said. “I could understand the software aspect of robotics, but I knew nothing about the hardware and the electrical aspect. I gradually learned from Mr. Westcott, who has mentored FTC teams before, how electrically the robot works.”
This interest, although originating with a message from his former mentor Mr. Westcott, now spans far beyond being a referee for OVS robotics competitions.
Leo now wants to expand further into the area of STEM, which is one of the reasons he received his training certificate and is now a registered referee.
As a leader within the robotics program, Leo made incredible contributions to the robotics team during his four years and Mr. Westcott is excited to see those contributions continue.
‘It just warms my heart to see him come back and volunteer to be a part of the [inter-league tournament],” Mr. Westcott said. “He’s been a great part of our program.”
But perhaps his greatest contribution, even more than rebuilding an entire robot in a week after the devastating Thomas fire destroyed the robotics lab, was his suggestion to strategize the division of team members into the two teams that OVS had.
“In my junior year, I suggested to reorganize the two teams, one for veteran members (Spudnik) and one for new members (Spudbot), instead of mixing veteran members and new members together into two [equal] teams,” Leo explained. “For example, when the game is released, Spudnik would start designing, building, and programming the robot immediately, while Spudbot would build a training robot to gain familiarity with the robots, before actually building a robot for competition. Spudbot, this way, has a better learning opportunity from the mentors and Spudnik members. If I could go back, I would suggest this idea earlier in the four years.”
Not only did this change allow the Spudbot team members to spend more time honing their abilities and interests in the realm of robotics, it also improved the overall performance of the Spudnik team.
In Leo’s first year, the Spudnik team placed somewhere around 30th of nearly 40 teams within the league. In Leo’s senior year, a year after this change, Spudnik placed 2nd overall in the league.
Although losing Leo was difficult, seeing him go on to pursue these passions at the University of Michigan has been incredibly rewarding to his mentors in the robotics program.
At the University of Michigan, Leo is taking computer science courses relating to robotics, computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, to further his understanding of the field he is so passionate about.
“Now that I have experienced robotics, I am more eager to take these challenging courses to expand my (computer science) skills,” Leo said.