The Spoofhound Robotics B Team made it to the quarterfinals of the annual VEX Robotics Worldwide Championship March 6 in Wentzville, Missouri, but was defeated by an unlikely scenario — a snapped rubber band.
Spoofhound Robotics consists of two teams, A Team and B Team. Only B Team made it to the VEX quarterfinals this year, due to A Team going to an event in Branson, Missouri. Junior Karsen Ebrecht, the captain of B Team, said the group was unable to score due to a malfunction.
“During the start of the match, I came over and tried to pick up some of these blocks, and these rubber bands snapped; and so I wasn’t able to score for the entirety of that match,” Ebert said.
“It was a really disappointing way to end the season, (the robot) just kind of sitting there lifeless, just not being able to score, or not be able to do anything, and that ended up with us losing.”
The VEX Robotics competitions have two main challenges that put the robots and their operators to the test. One of the trials sees a group of two teams, each with its own robot, working together against another pair of allied teams to keep the most amount of plastic blocks in a designated scoring zone. Alternatively, the Robot Skills Challenge tasks a robot with organizing colored blocks before the clock runs out.
While competitors mainly focus on performing well in the skill challenges and working with their teams, judges consider multiple other aspects. A team’s improvements made from previous years and its ability to be adaptable. Maryville High School teacher and Spoofhound Robotics coach Phil Stone said there are various skills the robotics program focuses on.
“I definitely don’t want to run this program in a way where I give them a bunch of parts and, like, a Lego-set type environment where you’re putting this together,” Stone said. “You need to learn how these things operate independently. They’re learning from their predecessors, who are still in…they’re teaching my freshmen how to do those skills, and it just sort of passes on from year-to-year.”
Stone said despite this year’s loss, Spoofhound Robotics has high hopes for the future. Stone said creating mentors for the future and gaining new members is an important goal for the team, and it is dedicated to putting in the time to achieve those goals.
“I’m so impressed with the dedication and time,” Stone said. “We started in August. We didn’t end until the first week of March, and so we spent a lot of time in here, and some of those days are an hour long, and some of those days are two hours long. Some of those days are five hours long, when it’s crunch time, and we have a big meet coming up. We’ve got good dedication.”
