Mountain Home High’s robotics team shines during Rocket City Regionals

Josh Dooley, Baxter Bulletin
Published 8:00 p.m. CT March 18, 2019

The Mountain Home High School Bomb Squad robotics team poses for a picture at the Rocket City Regionals in Alabama. The team took home a second place overall finish and also took home the Engineering Award for overall best design of a robot. (Photo: Team Photo)

The Mountain Home High School robotics team Bomb Squad came away from Huntsville, Ala., with a second-place finish last week, thanks to a revamped robot that had some serious work done it in a big hurry, according to teacher and team sponsor Jacquelyn Basinger.

Before Alabama, the Mountain Home team traveled to Chicago for the March 6-9 Midwest Regionals.

At the end of the qualifying rounds in that competition, the Mountain Home team was ranked second and got to choose to alliance members heading into the quarterfinals. The first match of the quarterfinals was close, a 63-61 victory for the Mountain Home alliance. The second match, the alliance had a convincing 76-45 victory.

Following their quarterfinals victory, they lost two straight matches, ending their run for the Midwest Regional championship.

A problem for the team during the Chicago competition was their robot not picking up game pieces in a consistent manner. As the team drove home from the March 6-9 competition, they furiously sketched new design possibilities for the pick-up mechanism.

When they arrived home, they took the finalized sketch and moved into the machine shop to build the improved design. They finished the design just in time to hit the road to Hunstsville, Ala., for the Rocket City Regional.

A highlight from the Midwest Regional in Chicago for the team was winning the Industrial Design award. The team won the award for their “swerve drive” mechanism that allows the robot to be driven in any direction, thanks to a gyroscope that tracks the machine’s exact position.

With new pick-up mechanism in place and tested, a confident Bomb Squad team made the trip to Alabama for the March 13-16 competition.

The team once again had a great qualifying performance.

“The robot was just zipping along in Alabama, it was reliable and the kids were doing a great job,” Basinger said. “Our robot was placing hatches much more consistently and reliably.”

That consistency led to a first-place ranking for the Bomb Squad out of a field of 54 teams. Along the way, the team compiled a 9-1 record. They selected team Cyber Blue out of Indiana and Clockwork Mania out of Florida.

The alliance made quick work of the quarterfinals and semifinals before advancing to the finals. Then, disaster struck.

The Bomb Squad’s robot had a serious malfunction with the drive system. Basinger said the robot’s gyroscope programming suffered a glitch, making steering the robot nearly impossible. The alliance lost the best-of-three finals.

The team came home and began work once again on solving an issue. Basinger said the team believes they have the drivetrain issue solved. They’re looking forward to the World Championship to be held April 23-27 in Detroit.

“We’ve seen some really cool designs from around the world,” Basinger said of the competition. “It’s been a short season of regionals, but a good one.”

The team has a five-week break between the Alabama competition and the upcoming World Championship.

With the drive train problem solved, the team will be working on strategy, Basinger said.

“Defense has been a big part of this year’s game, much more so than in other years,” said Basinger. “We’ll be working on how to counter defenses. We’ll be using a second robot to play defense during our practice.”

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