College Prep FTC and Science Olympiad Teams
Maker Faire Bay Area 2017
GROUP
College Preparatory School Science Olympiad and Robotics Teams
CPS, a high school in Oakland, encourages students to explore STEM fields. The CPS Robotics Club teaches students about robotics and competes in the FTC competition. The Science Olympiad Club lets CPS students study, build, and compete in Regionals.
The CPS Robotics Club and Science Olympiad Club teams have brought a remote-operated rover that competed in the FTC and throws wiffle balls into hoops, a robot arm that picks up and moves pennies to score points, and a green laser spirograph.
What inspired you to make this project?:
Last year, the robotics club competed in the FTC, and got 15/15 in qualifier rounds. It was our very first year in this competition, and we had not taken it very seriously. This year, we were just as underfunded as last year, but we worked very hard. This is an almost entirely student-run club, we had no mentor and no engineering experience. We would often tear down what we had built the day before, due to a lack of planning. However, the week before the competition, we put our heads together and worked about five to eight hours a day, and built the robot. Due to a lack of mentorship, we scored 10/15, but were delighted. The robot arm is currently a work in progress, but will have competed by the Maker's Faire. I was inspired to build the spirograph because I'm trying to understand the math equations that govern it. I will most likely understand them better by May.
