After a year of not competing, the robotics program is ready to rumble.
Last Saturday, the Ojai Valley School Robotics teams met for the first time with a collection of teams from League V of the First Tech Challenge robotics program.
The OVS Robotics teams have competed in the First Tech Challenge robotics competitions for the past six years. Over the years the program has evolved to a large number of teams coming to the Ojai Valley School campus to participate and compete in various robotics competitions and workshops.
This past weekend, League V teams gathered in the newly opened Littlefield Student Commons at the Upper Campus to watch the live kickoff event that was broadcast around the country by FTC. In this event the game and how it is played was demonstrated for all the teams and students.
This year’s competition will begin with a 30-second autonomous phase in which the robots do various tasks only based on preprogrammed instructions and sensors. During the autonomous phase, robots may score points by delivering rubber ducks from a spinning carousel, moving freight to the alliance storage unit, and parking in team specific places. During the 2-minute, driver-controlled period, robots may score points by unloading game elements from the carousel, moving freight into alliance-specific shipping hubs and storage units, and delivering freight into the alliance-shared shipping hub.
The last 30 seconds of the driver0-controlled phase is called “The Endgame.” In this final phase, robots may score points by putting a team-specific capping elements onto their shipping hubs, moving freight, and parking in alliance specific places to score extra points.
Christopher Westcott, the OVS robotics team advisor, outlined his goals of creating interest in robotics engineering, software engineering, and strategy through the robotics competition.
“My overall goal is just to build a program where students can use their creative talents to explore possible passions and career paths in engineering, programming, marketing and logistics,” Mr. Westcott said.
This year there are more kids participating in the robotics program than ever before, and this will help push OVS into the forefront of the FTC program and possibly even make OVS the league champion for FTC League V.
Mr. Westcott and OVS science teacher Micah Sittig are beyond ready to restore the robotics program to what it was pre- Covid.
Mr.Westcott explains that the current excitement around this year’s robotics program kickoff is not only the competitions but also the restoration of what the robotics program gives to the OVS students.
“We’re not only about building robots, we’re about building people,” says Mr.Westcott.
On The Hill Staff Writers Caleb Carber and Zachary Danino contributed to this story.