York Robotics hosts first in-person tournament since pandemic began, claims 2nd place

YORK, Maine — The robotics team at York High School hosted Maine's first VEX Robotics competition of the school year and the first in-person tournament since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Twenty-six teams from across the state competed Saturday, Nov. 13, at YHS for several awards, including best performing alliance.

After forming an alliance, two YHS teams came in second place, behind a first-place alliance of a Yarmouth High School team and a Maine School of Science and Mathematics team.

Other awards given to teams evaluated their teamwork and the engineering process.

One of the YHS teams, known as Happy Hands, was given the judges' award, based on the team's collaboration, sportsmanship and interviews with the judges.

The team includes programmer Hunter Pruett, 17, driver Ben Boksanski, 18, and builder Cam Dalton, 17. All three teammates are currently YHS seniors and have been involved with the group since their freshman year.

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Pruett said the team’s key to success is their friendship and ability to communicate. Although each of them has a primary role on the team, Pruett said he understands how to build and drive the robot so that he can fill in for his teammates and understand why and how they’re approaching an issue.

The COVID-19 year tested a number of teams, Boksanski said, and required a far greater amount of time and dedication to building a robot.

“The main thing is that we didn't really have support from our mentors, we couldn’t meet in person with them … so a lot of ideas that probably would’ve been shut down ... we tried and tested ourselves,” Boksanski said. “It was beneficial … but it did slow us down.”

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York Robotics mentor Gerald Mackaman said VEX Robotics provides a common kit of materials and sets competition guidelines, such as limiting the size of a robot to an 18-inch cube.

“Everyone's trying to solve the same problem,” he said.

Students have creative choice in wheel design, base structure and what kind of operating system they want to have, Mackaman said.

“As a team, they decide what design ideas are going to best fit the way they want the robot to play the game … so you'll see a lot of different, clever ideas,” he said.

Teams reuse the same materials from the original kit as the tournament season progresses and events get more and more competitive, Mackaman said.

Pruett said it's common for the team to not have kept a single thing the same between competitions.

“We pretty much rebuild our entire robot without meaning to,” Pruett said

Organizers describe York Robotics as an extra-curricular club that provides students an opportunity to explore robotics in a competitive yet supportive environment. Started with grant support from the York Education Foundation and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the club grew to accommodate, in a typical year, 40 members who form eight smaller sub-teams that each builds, designs and programs a robot.

This year, the number of students has dropped to about 28, with six sub-groups, mentor Linda Mackaman said. That’s because they didn’t do any recruitment at the middle school, and some students struggled to do the work virtually, she said.

“This is kind of our rebuilding year,” she said.

Students spent months working separately and collaborating with their teammates online, until the school administration gave them the go-ahead in March to resume in-person activities, she said.

“There's nothing that replaces the positive energy of students being in the room together and being able to put hands on and share ideas and see each other … I think really just helps everybody get that much more benefit,” she added.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York High School Robotics hosts 1st in-person tournament of pandemic