RoboBacon and Trial and Error

RoboBacon and Trial and Error are Aurora’s amazing Robotics teams. At the recent Kent State University tournament both teams performed extremely well. RoboBacon took first place in the Design Award and Trial and Error was the Winning Alliance Team and won the Control Award.

The members of RoboBacon include: Sam LoGalbo, Tommy LoGalbo, Thomas Stoycos, Joseph Liang, Kate Liang, Sam Nabring, Mia Bryant, Kylie Bryant, and Kevin Jin. And the members of Trial and Error include: Sanjana Duvvuri, Zack Goldston, Joey Esposito, and Kameron Fry.

A lot of work goes into preparing for these tournaments and the teams spend hours preparing their robots to ensure they are at their best and fit the regulations.

Mia Bryant states, “For each match, we have an alliance partner and two opponents on the other alliance. Only the two drivers control the robot, along with one other team member as a 'coach' (advises the drivers). The robot is controls only by programming in thirty second autonomous, but for the driver control (2 minutes) the drivers control the robot. The rest of the team scouts the other teams to gauge their capabilities, helps with tests, and helps fix the robot if problems arise (and they always seem to!).”

Sam LoGalbo shares, “The team meets typically on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Typically we tweak the programming of the robot and make repairs to the robot when needed.”

Member of RoboBacon, Mia Bryant, shares, “Sometimes we will spend an entire practice working out a problem and barely make any progress. Other times, we are able to get a lot done by dividing and conquering. We all have team roles oriented towards what we are most skilled in.”

The teams compete in different competitions in the FIRST Tech Challenge competition league.

Trial and Error member, Kameron Fry, said, “Our team is a part of the FIRST Tech Challenge competition league, in which teams compete in regional, then state, then world competitions against some of the thousands of other teams across the globe. The competition consists of 5 qualifying matches allied with and pitted against random teams, followed by a finals tournament of the best teams of the day. The robot that we build has to accomplish different tasks every year, but in general, it must collect, sort, launch, or organize certain game elements to score points.”

Member of RoboBacon, Sam LoGalbo, shares, “Our team went to two competitions this year. The first competition at Tri-C did not go as we planned and we only finished in the middle of the pack. However, at our second tournament at Kent State we did extremely well by not only winning the tournament with our alliance team Trial and Error but we won the Design Award as well.”

Participating in either of the robotics teams seems like the perfect way for anyone with an interest in engineering to get a feel for the field and future careers and a great way to meet people who share these interests.

Bryant shares, “I joined the team when it first began six years ago in the FIRST branch of FLL (FIRST Lego League). Some of my friends were interested in legos, problem solving, and programming. We discovered the FIRST program, and became a team.”