Young robotics fans compete in tournament at Kent State University

The four robots sat still, two on each side of the competition surface, with yellow rods of various heights sticking up from the floor.

Then came a "Go" and a recorded trumpet blast, like that which sets off the horses at a race track, and the robots were off, a man calling the action over a public address system so he could be heard above the noise of the crowd in the Kent State University Student Center ballroom. The first 30 seconds or so, the robots operated autonomously and then were taken over by human operators.

The machines raced around the floor to pick up small blue and red cones, which looked like plastic drinking cups with the bottoms cut out. The cones were then raised on lifts rising above the mechanized, four-wheeled platforms to be placed over the tops of the rods — as many as each robot could manage during the two minutes and 40 seconds before a whistle blew to end the match.

It was one of a number of competitions at a regional youth robotics tournament on Saturday. More than 30 elementary, middle and high school teams with as many as 200 participants were lined up to take part.

"We run like seven different events or eight different events over the course of the season, and this is the biggest event we run," said Nathan Sterrett, president of KSS Robotics, a Kent-based non-profit organization that hosted the tournament in partnership with KSU's College of Aeronautics and Engineering.

One of the robots competing in the cone and rods match was the brainchild of 24 Karat, a team made up of a half-dozen area high school students.

"To build, it took around three months and then to program, about the same," said team member Gabe Alimov, a Stow-Munroe Falls High School ninth grader. "So a total of about six months to get to where we are now."

Sterrett said 24 Karat had already qualified for a state competition in Troy, near Dayton, during a previous event in March. Another local team that KSS Robotics provides support for, Aedificatores — latin for "The Builders" — qualified for the state competition during the KSU tournament.

Teams in the state competition will have an opportunity to advance to a national competition in April.

Kids interested in robotics

KSS Robotics operates under the aegis of FIRST — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — a national organization with a mission to advance STEM education: science, technology, engineering and math.

"It works a little bit like Boy Scouts or 4-H," said Sterrett, "where there's a national organization and they kind of set the overall rules and do the background, you know, give us access to the portal so we can background check volunteers and stuff like that. And then they designate the running of the local stuff to local organizations. Wright Patterson Air Force Base runs the events for Ohio and we run the events under the direction of Wright Pat in Northeast Ohio."

KSS stands for Kent, Stow and Suffield, the three communities where a group of families behind the creation of KSS Robotics lived.

"A little bit longer than 10 years ago, all of our kids were interested in robotics," said Sterrett. "And so we got together with some help from some of the people who had already formed a team. And then at some point, that turned into needing to have a non-profit, to have a bank account and all that kind of stuff. An organization."

The final step, he added, was leasing space in the TransOhio Building on Franklin Avenue, just north of state Route 261, in 2019. The space includes five or six rooms with tools and equipment where local teams can gather to work on their robots.

"Now we facilitate running events and running teams," said Sterrett. "I think we have 10 different teams that we run out of the space for grades one through 12."

Open to grades one to 12

Teams are divided into three groups. FIRST Lego League Jr. is for children ages 6 to 10, and FIRST Lego League is for grades four to eight. FIRST Tech Challenge, the group that designs and builds robots from scratch and not from kits, is for grades seven to 12.

KSS Robotics says on its website that the goal is not just competition, but to teach participants problem-solving, how to think like scientists and engineers and to work together as a team.

Gabe Alimov, of team 24 Karat, said the group did initial design work by sketching it out on paper and then fine-tuning it using 3D computer-aided design. A few parts were purchased from companies online, but the team custom made many parts themselves, using 3D printing for some and milling and lathing for others. Tools and equipment used were either available at KSS Robotics or through people that team members know.

Alimov said he came with useful skills as a three-time national champion at building and operating model aircraft.

"That gave me a lot of experience needed to build it, and many of the members on our team have been in this program for many years and used their knowledge to build it," he said.

Lead programmer Santosh Akilesh Kumar, an Aurora High School freshman, said the robot was designed using Java, a programming language developed in the 1990s. He said he had studied Java before taking a class in it this year.

"This year was actually my first year of programming. Last year, I dabbled in it," said Kumar, adding he had also been lead programmer on a FIRST Lego League team he was previously a member of.

'Made from scratch'

As he stood next to the robot his team, Aedificatores, built, Owen Crawley said the machine also took months to design and build.

"This was all made from scratch," said the eighth grader at Bio-Med Science Academy in Rootstown.

Maddex Fildes, also a Bio-Med eighth grader, was one of the two designers of plastic parts for the team's robot, but he said the entire six-member team took part in the overall design.

The team started with a whiteboard to begin the design work, then 3D CAD was used. Some parts were custom designed while others were purchased from various companies online.

Fildes said a challenge for the team was overcoming a flaw.

"Our old design for a robot used string [in the lift to pick up cones]," he said. "It would break in almost every competition, and it wasn't as efficient as we wanted it to be."

Crawley programmed the webcam-equipped robot for the autonomous phase of the competition, which included the challenge of parking in one of several spots, each with a different random color. This not only required programming the robot to recognize colors, but also to calibrate for differences in lighting, which can impact color recognition.

"It took me 10 hours of work over a course of multiple days," he said.

A 'learning experience'

Upstairs, as the older students began their day in the ballroom, the younger competitors were wrapping things up.

"We had a car that's coded to go [into a charging station] and will flash red, the light on the car will flash red," said Quin Turnidge, a first grader at Walls Elementary School in Kent. "That means it's low on battery. Then it will go into the charging station and when it's good, it will go green and it will drive backwards."

Quin, one of five members of the Lego Raptors, said his idea was to add decorative controls, such as levers, buttons and dials to the station.

At this stage, competitors start with a Lego kit and expand on and program it to solve a problem. Teams at this beginning level do not compete for a spot in the state competition.

"They're just going in for the learning experience. They don't advance," said Sterrett.

One of Quin's teammates, Richard Martynowski, a first grader at Ellsworth Hill Elementary School in Hudson, said the object was to go on an "energy journey" and learn about the capture and storage, distribution and consumption of energy.

The kids learned about different methods of energy production, such as wind and water turbines, and dams. The charging station itself has solar panels on its roof.

Jason Turnidge, Quin's father, said parents can really be involved at this level.

"This is an activity he and I can do together," he said.

Turnidge teaches architecture part time at Kent State University and is also a furniture maker, but he has some useful background through his father, who taught math and computer science at KSU.

"It's a way of sharing coding in a fun way," he said.

For more information about FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, go to www.firstinspires.org.

For more information about KSS Robotics, go to https://sites.google.com/view/kssrobotics.

Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Young robotics fans compete in tournament at Kent State University