KAILUA-KONA — Three Hawaii Island schools — including two from West Hawaii — are putting their robotics know-how to the test this week as they vie for a chance at an upcoming world robotics championship.
Students from West Hawaii Explorations Academy, Konawaena High School and Hilo High School are all taking part in the FIRST Robotics Regional Competition, hosted by Friends of Hawaii Robotics. The contest started Friday and continues today at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu.
The local students are among more than 1,200 from 36 local, national and international high-school teams that will compete for the opportunity to take part in the World Championships, scheduled for April 18-21 in Houston, Texas.
This is the 11th year for the competition, which each year presents a new challenge for students to build a robot that can take on the challenges specific to the year’s theme.
This year, the theme “FIRST Power UP” challenges students to work together and defeat “The Boss.”
The game immerses students in a retro arcade game environment, in which two alliances of characters and their operators are “trapped,” according to a video preview of the game.
To escape, the robots have to use power cubes to control switches and scales, scoring points in the process. Teams can also earn power ups by having their robots deliver the cubes to their humans, who can put them into a vault, netting them a temporary advantage.
Finally, robots can climb the scale to “face the boss.”
The team with the most points “wins the match and defeats the boss,” the video declares.
Liana White, lead high school teacher at West Hawaii Explorations Academy, said the school’s nine students who were in Honolulu for the contest were thrilled to take part in the contest.
White said the students are joined in Honolulu by former WHEA student Mike D’Amico, now a first-year teacher at the school, among others from the school.
White said the competition represents a culmination of the students’ work, saying that while some might conceptualize robotics “as a very specific, small thing,” the students’ efforts span an array of disciplines.
That includes business skills, creative endeavors and the skills of science, technology, engineering and math.
And another aspect of it, she said, is that students coming into the program might not know what excites them and, through their participation, discover new passions or interests they can pursue.
Lenny Klompus, president of Friends of Hawaii Robotics, also noted the opportunities the contest provides to students, calling the event’s 11th year “a milestone.”
The prospect of building a robot is exciting enough, he said in a release, adding the program also creates the opportunity for students to work as a team to address real-world problems, building both teamwork and communication skills.
“Today, more than ever,” Klompus said, “students are moving on to secondary education with diverse tools that enables them to build for their future careers in a myriad of fields.”
