Robot “Koby” mechanizes Cove students for contest

Robot “Koby” mechanizes Cove students for contest

By NATALIE MARSHALL

Special to Leader-Press

Nothing But Net was the theme of this year’s VEX Robotics Competition held at Shoemaker High School where six of Copperas Cove High School’s team members enjoyed competing against other students.

The high school robotics club under the advisement of engineering teacher Barbara Considine has been meeting since December to brainstorm ideas that would create a robot that could launch over 100 foam balls into a net as required by the contest. Prior to the competition, the high school club’s team watched several videos that would help them equip their robot with a launching mechanism for the battle using a list of allowable materials to be considered eligible for the VEX Robotic Competition.

After two months of brainstorming as a team on how to build a robot that could have the correct mechanisms to launch the foam balls, it took four days for the team to get “Koby” built and functioning for the competition.

“It was a good learning experience for them. They got really excited about coming back next year,” Considine said.

Teams earned points based on a variety of challenges and obstacles they could conquer during each match while partnered with one other team and opposing two other groups. Copperas Cove ranked in tenth place which placed them into the quarter final competition.

Freshman Isabell Bissell had a lot of fun during the competition watching other teams compete their robots in the challenges.

“My favorite part was the building and testing of our robot and finding ideas to put our robot together,” she said.

Fellow team member, Michael Herrera, also stated that the brainstorming as a team and the many trial and errors it took to make their robot work was his favorite part.

“Just seeing what other people could do with the same materials was exciting,” he said.