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Terre
Haute North
High School Terre Haute, Indiana Sweep Botball Robotics Awards Seeking Funds to Attend International
Botball Championship in
Washington D.C. David Mutchler,
Mentor - Media Contact
David.Mutchler@Rose-Hulman.edu (812) 878-4205
We
need $4,800 to fund trip to the Global Robotics
Conference |
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Generous Sponsors include:
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Greater St Louis, Terre Haute, IN, Terre Haute North High School
Terre Haute North High School Botball Robotics Team
Seeking Sponsorship for their trip to the International Botball Championship
Washington
D.C. July 1 – July 7, 2009
The Terre Haute North High School Botball Robotics team swept awards at the Greater St. Louis Botball robotics championship at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIUE), 4/25/2009, and has been invited to compete in the International Botball Championship in Washington D.C. on July 1 – July 7, 2009. They need $4,800 to cover travel expenses to this once-in-a-lifetime chance to compete in this famous International competition. Sponsors have come forward but funds are still needed to send the 6 students and 2 adults to the East coast.
Botball is unique in that
all robots
are fully autonomous. Unlike other robotics competitions that
rely on
remote control to adjust the robot's tactics, Botball robots execute a
pre-programmed strategy designed by the student teams. Once the
competition begins, no human input is allowed.
13 teams competed
and 50 cheered in the
March 2009 Greater St. Louis
Botball Championship, including well
funded
teams from several better funded school districts in Indiana and Illinois.
Double Elimination - First Place!!! The best we have ever done!!
Seeding - Second Place
Documentation - Third Place
Overall - Second Place! Our highest finish ever!!! Plus, we missed first by just a fraction of a point (so close!)
Judge's Choice Award - Outstanding Onsite Presentation. We received a Perfect Score (100%) for this presentation!
Perhaps best of all: Judge's Choice Trophy for the Spirit of Botball! We won this for helping other teams with their programming during the contest! (Or maybe for sharing some cool Halo demos with other teams, we're not sure... We did both!)
Our double-elimination tournament might have been the most exciting one in the country this year! Certainly, it featured pressure-filled, on-the-spot work rarely seen in a tournement. Here is the story:
The most exciting moment of the Regional Tournament in St. Louis came in the Double Elimination portion. We were seeded 2nd and St. Mary’s (the perennial champion) was seeded 1st. Late in the tournament we came up against each other. In the first 11 seconds of the 2 minute match:
• Our defensive robot (Sheila) raced to its position in front of St. Mary’s scoring area, opening its arms (see picture attached).
• St. Mary’s offensive robot raced to their scoring area.
• The two robots collided! Ours kept theirs from scoring!
Alas, soon thereafter, their defensive robot put itself in a similar position blocking our scoring area. Our offensive robot (TE2, aka “Tribble Eater 2”) gathered scoring objects nicely but came up against their defensive robot and was blocked! It ALMOST scooted to the side, which would have put scoring objects in an almost-scoring position, but it didn’t quite.
So, the score at the end of the match was 0 to 0! On to tie-breakers!
• First tie-breaker is: who got the most scoring objects into “almost-scoring” positions? We almost got ours there, but not quite. No tie-break from this!
• Another tie-breaker is: who came out of the starting box? We both did – no tie-breaker from this!
• The last tie-breaker is: Which robot’s power-on button is closest to “Botguy” (one of the scoring objects on the board)? Bring out the measuring tape!
Alas, theirs was closest by about an inch, so they won the match.
Remember, this is a double-elimination tournament. We felt that we could beat the other teams, in which case we would get a rematch with St. Mary’s. But we were pretty sure that the rematch would have exactly the same behavior, with exactly the same result. So we made a change on the fly! We reprogrammed our robot to go out, grab a cup, and instead of continuing to our scoring area, return to our starting area – there the cup scores a small (but non-zero!) amount! We ran the revised program in the rematch even without being able to test it (no time!)! And we won the rematch when the revised program worked flawlessly!
That meant that we would play St. Mary’s one more time for all the marbles. St. Mary’s felt that the third match would end up just like the second, so this time THEY made a change on the fly! They hurriedly attached an arm that they had built the previous night and attempted to program it to fling a scoring object over the top of our blocking robot into the scoring area! Just like us, they did not have time to test the revised program. Their robot came out, and did the fling – but at too slow a speed; the scoring object fell short! We won!!!!
Postscript: Yet a 3rd team made an on-the-spot programming change in the final rounds of this tournament -- Revitalization saw that they would play us for the right to challenge St. Mary's in the final round. Revitalization realized that their strategy would not beat ours, so they did a last-second change. Alas, the change did not work, but we applaud their effort!
I think that it is safe to say that no Regional Tournament has EVER had the last 3 matches feature last-second, on-the-spot strategy changes by 3 different teams!
They are invited to the national championship, but the school district has no money to send them, and the parents do not have resources to fund the trip. Corporate sponsors are stepping up to help, but fundraising got a very late start because nobody expected these underdogs to win the competition. So we are asking for help from all sources to sponsor these underdogs’ life-altering chance to compete in the International Botball Championship competition.
A sponsor Spring Clean
Car Wash - (812) 208-4707 has come forward to help. For
each car wash coupon booklet that we sell ($25 for Express Wash
coupons, $40 for Ultimate Wash coupons), they donate HALF to us! They
will let us sell as many as we can. We hope to sell about 50 coupon
booklets; if so, Spring Clean will have donated about $700 to us!
Other sponsors so far include Anedix Technologies, Kenneth Zigler Masonry, and Terry's Jewelry Repair.
We have set up a website with more information, and to help collect donations: http://thnbotball.com and the complete press release & story on http://www.regathon.com/botball/regions/terrehaute_indiana/
Please consider sponsoring one of the underdogs listed below in their life changing journey to D.C. Anything you can contribute would be a great help, even a few dollars would be great, in getting this award-winning underdog team to proudly represent Greater St. Louis in the International Botball Championships.
Thank you for your support! Go Terre Haute North!!!
Dr. David Mutchler, MentorProfessor of Computer Science
and Software Engineering
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
David.Mutchler@Rose-Hulman.edu (812) 878-4205
PRESS RELEASE
Corporations Sponsor Terre Haute North High School Botball Educational Robotics Team, an Award-Winner in the Greater St. Louis Botball Championship
The
KISS
Institute for Practical Robotics KIPR declares the
Terre Haute North High School Team as a 2009
Greater St. Louis Botball Educational Robotics Tournament winner at
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIUE), Illinois, on 4/25/2009.
An
estimated
50 spectators cheered for the 13 teams
competing in the Greater St, Louis Botball
competition.
The
6 members of the
Terre Haute North High School Botball Team who swept many awards at the
Greater St. Louis Regional competition, are currently raising funds to cover the estimated
$4,800
required to attend the prestigious international Botball conference in
Washington D.C. from July 1 - July 7, 2009.
Terre Haute North
High
School is
part of
the low income Vigo County Terre Haute
School
District
and funds are not available from the school for the trip.
Donations are sought to allow them to
attend this prestigious and life changing conference. The
annual International Botball Tournament takes place during the Global
Conference on Educational Robotics. More than 6,000 international
students
participate in Botball every year and more than 60,000 have competed
over 11
years. In 2009, teams from 23 states and 6 countries will participate
in
Botball.
Please see the website for more information and for instructions on donating or helping fund the trip to Washington D.C: http://www.regathon.com/botball/regions/terrehaute_indiana/ or http://thnbotball.com
The Botball Educational
Robotics Program
engages middle and high school aged students in a team-oriented
robotics
competition that develops students’ science, technology, engineering,
computer
science and math skills. In Botball, all the design, coding, and
building of
robots is done by students, and no machining is necessary. The theme
of this
year's game was “Alternative Energy”.
For more information about
Botball please
see: www.Botball.org
or
contact: outreach@kipr.org
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CONTACTS
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Dr.
David Mutchler (David.Mutchler@Rose-Hulman.edu)
(812) 878-4205
Dr.
Mutchler is the team's mentor. He was at every team meeting, answering
student questions and helping to direct their work. The team met at
least once a week in his lab at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology,
where he is Professor of Computer Science and Software
Engineering. Dr.
Mutchler is leading the effort to enable the team to attend the Global
Conference on Education Robotics 2009 (GCER-2009). He and his children
will be doing the Beyond Botball competition during GCER and he will
supervise the Botball team.
Mrs. Jill Brechbill
Parent
(812) 877-2260
Mrs.
Brechbill is the team's treasurer and fundraiser-leader. She has led
the fundraising efforts to enable the team to attend the Global
Conference on Education Robotics 2009 (GCER-2009). As part of that, she
recruited Spring Clean Car Wash as the team's major sponsor.
Steve Goodgame, Executive Director
KISS Institute of Practical Robotics - KIPR
sgoodgame@kipr.org
1818 W. Lindsey
Bldg. D, Ste. 100
Norman, OK 73069
Phone: (405) 579-4609
Fax : (405) 329-4664
Marci Corie, Program Manager
KISS Institute of Practical Robotics - KIPR
mcorey@kipr.org
405-579-4609
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PARTNER'S INFORMATION
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Botball http://www.Botball.org
KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, an educational non-profit organization, will present 14 Botball Workshops and Tournaments this year - 12 in the United States and 2 based internationally. The Botball Program begins with a 2-day professional development workshop where educators and team leaders learn about current robotics technology and how to implement it into their classroom or community. Through the course of the workshop, participants receive all the information about the current Botball game and the reusable robotics kit and components - Students construct a working demo bot!
Terre Haute North High School
3434 Maple Ave., Terre Haute, IN 47805 (812) 462-4312. The Terre Haute North Vigo High School community is committed to providing a secure haven for learning. We strive to empower and to challenge all students to become educated, ethical, responsible citizens in a diverse, ever-changing world.
Terre Haute North High School Botball Team http://thnbotball.com
The team consists of 8 student members and 2 teacher/mentors, who partner to build & program robots for robotic competitions all around the Indiana and Illinois area. They swept many awards in the competition in the Greater St. Louis Regional Tournament against stiff competition from much better funded and more robotically-experienced school districts, through a combination of hard work and clever robotics implementation.
TEAM BIOS
Deagon 17 / junior - Second year on Botball team. Deagon is the team's master builder and is heading for a career in mechanical engineering.
Jeremy 16 / sophomore - First year on Botball team. Jeremy pitched in wherever help was needed.
Kyle 15 / sophomore - First year on Botball team. Kyle created the team's website.
Sammy 17 / junior - First year on Botball team. I wrote my first-ever program during the final round of the Double Elimination tournament, when the team felt that they needed a change in strategy to win and our lead programmer was unavailable (doing the onsite presentation). The program worked and we won the Double-Elimination!
Seth 18 / senior - This is my seventh year doing Botball! I am proud to have won the sportmanship award more than once! I was the leader and driving force of the team through the Regionals, but now I am taking a back-seat position to help groom leaders for next year's team. I will be at Indiana University next year, majoring in film studies and considering taking a course in robotics. I have twice lived outside of the U.S. for a year with my family - in 2000-2001, I lived in Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, and in 2007-2008 I lived in Dominica, an island in the Caribbean. In both cases, I learned what it is like to be a minority (whites form less than 5% in Dominica) and to live in a multi-cultural society (in the tiny island of Mauritius, there are 17 languages spoken as a first-language, 3 major religions, and many ethnicities). I think that I bring that sense-of-world to my interactions at school, in his community, and at Botball, where I am proud to say that I am always regarded as someone that you can count on for help, understanding, tolerance and kindness.
Zach 18 / junior - This is Zach's first year on the Botball team. He had a great time at the Regionals and is very excited about attending the International Tournament!
Zigler 18 / junior - First year on Botball team. Zigler has done EVERYTHING on the team, from building to testing to programming to driving the team to the Regionals!