Inter-Lakes High robotics team goes on to World Championship

The team placed seventh at an event in Rhode Island and third at an event at the University of New Hampshire.

After placing 23rd out of more than 180 teams this season, the Lakerbots qualified for the world championship.

"Our goal for this season was to do well at the New England District Championships, a step up from last year when we just barely qualified," said Joe Derrick, the lead mentor of the Lakerbots. "The idea for us was just to make districts and be solid, so this is all a bonus going to the world championship. Our expectations are to have fun and compete."

As Derrick spoke, students were busy loading equipment onto a pallet for shipment to Texas. Others worked on last-minute spare parts.

In the past six weeks, the team designed, manufactured, programmed and tested their very own robot to compete. It weighs over 100 pounds and is composed of both pre-manufactured and custom-built parts. Some are 3D-printed, while others are milled via computer numerical control, or CNC, machine, all in the classrooms of Inter-Lakes.

"When you think of a robot team, you're thinking, 'Oh, just hands-on building a robot,'" said Megan Theriault, team mentor and mother of one of the students. "There's so much to it. They're learning about budgeting, funding, strategy, how the game works, how to design, how to code, how to CNC their own parts. They're learning so many skills."

The game consists of competition and cooperation between six teams. The robots are divided into two, three-member alliances with the goal of collecting objects called "game pieces" from a playing field and placing them in collection locations or on poles. The machine uses an arm, claw, wrist and elevator to place the game pieces at their appropriate levels.

When it comes to choosing their alliances, it's up to the students to collect data on other robots in the field to guide their decisions.

"I'm the scouting sub-team lead, so I designed and programmed the scouting app," eighth grader Danielle Cornelissen said. "At a competition, we have six scouters who are each assigned to one robot per match. We watch all their movements and how many game pieces they place and what they do in a match. So when it comes to alliance selection, if we're an alliance captain, we can pick other teams to join."

For the first 15 seconds of each match, the robots have to rely solely on their programming to collect as many points as possible. After that, the teams operate the robots via remote control.

"There are three levels," explained Caleb Theriault, an eighth grader who joined the program last year. "The robot can score cones on the posts, cubes in the boxes. On the bottom level, it can score either a cone or a cube."

Creating such a machine requires technical know-how, teamwork, communication and focus.

Despite his age, Caleb is the assembly sub-team leader.

"I work on putting the robot together when we have all the pieces, and I can instruct people on what to work on when they don't know what to do," said Caleb, who hopes for a career in engineering.

Cornelissen said she's interested in pursuing a career in programming. Despite being one of the few female team members in a normally male-dominated field, Cornelissen said she's always felt welcomed.

"Even though it's mostly guys, they still feel like my family," Cornelissen said. "Ever since I first walked in the room to learn, they made me feel like I was part of the team. It's just a great environment to be working around them."

Team member Leo Kusch, a sophomore student, joined last year after having Derrick as a teacher. He's the control system sub-team leader.

"Once we build the robot, I put everything on it and wire it all together," Kusch said. "It's a ton of work, not a lot of people like doing it; it's just me and two different people."

Unlike many of his peers, Kusch said he loves wire work and described it as "super fun."

"It was a steep learning curve," said Kusch, who wants to work in aerospace. "I didn't know anything going in, and we don’t have a lot of tools or access to stuff; you're basically just thrown into it.”

"I was very interested in our coding classes in elementary school and kept that interest all the way through high school," said Mason Lakis, another 10th grader who has been interested in programming since elementary school. "When I found out [we had a robotics team], I was like, 'Oh, this is awesome, I can finally pursue this passion of mine.'"

Lakis is responsible for the bulk of the robot’s programming. He said there are thousands of tasks across different programs for different parts of the robot.

"I like to help people get interested in programming," Lakis said. "I have about two or three people helping me."

In addition to hard skills like coding, wiring and design, Lakerbots team members are improving their social and communication skills.

"There are kids who practice speaking to judges, so they’re learning to speak to adults, and I think their public speaking skills are improving," Megan said. "For all the team members, going to the world championship is going to be inspiring for them to meet other teams that are just at crazy high levels.”

To get there, the team is been raising money through GoFundMe. After posting the campaign on Sunday, the Lakerbots earned around $5,000 in two and a half days. The team's current goal is $7,500. The team hopes to raise the additional funds by April 18. To support the team, visit gofundme.com/f/cg7cm-lakerbots-head-to-world-championships.

"This is amazing for this team," Megan said. "They all worked so hard for this. They put a lot of hours in, not just four days a week here. They work from home. At night they do CAD [computer-aided design] work together."