Lakeland Regional High School’s Robotics Club, X-Treme Heat Team 223, made their way down to the district competition at Mt. Olive High School during the weekend of March 2-3, 2024. They have spent countless hours of trial and error in order to represent the LRHS Lancers, and had a strong showing at the competition.
The LRHS Robotics team made it into the semi-finals and ended the competition in 9th place out of 32 teams and was honored with the Judges’ Award. The Lancers say that they could’ve been more prepared going to the alliance section but were overall very proud of their work.
According to senior Janet Hodges,”[Extreme Heat] brought a lot of enthusiasm and hopes that our team would do well.” Advisor and technology education teacher, Randy Coren, told the Ledger, that the team had a very strong season.
A Robotic Competition
At the competition, all teams start after an opening ceremony. After this, the teams go into what is called the qualification matches. During these matches three different teams are selected to form what is called an alliance. This creates two alliance teams that compete head to head. The teams compete against each with a task given at the beginning of the season. Following the qualification matches, the top eight teams get to select their own alliances for the play off round. The LRHS team uses their alliance scouting data collected to try and ensure the best alliances possible. Playoffs start once all alliances are finalized. In this round, teams have two brackets, a winner and a losers, and could be eliminated through double elimination. There are ways to gain points in the competition, the more points scored the higher teams will rank.
The Lancers arrived at the competition with their robot, Sandman. The team also brought as many tools as they could, such as tool carts, drills, and a safety bucket. All teams were given the same task to complete at the beginning of the season. This year, the goal was for the robot to shoot foam rings into both a speaker trap and an amp trap. Robots were also instructed to be able to climb a stage or across a chain. For extra team points, team members could throw notes or rings and hook them onto the microphone game pieces. Senior Alexandria Colamarino said that the team’s individual goal is to ”always win the competition but to also have fun while doing so.”
Robotics Club
The LRHS Robotics Club has annual meetings after school every Thursday down in the cafeteria. For the first half the year, the club works to plan and create their robot while securing their sponsors. During these meetings the team sets up a mock field around the room to mimic what the competition would look like. The team itself is divided into different departments that each have their own specific role. The three different departments are programming, build team, and business team. The programming department would work on perfecting the tiniest details in the robot in order to make sure they were as perfect as they could be. The build team department would practice speaking to the judges as well as working under pressure, taking apart parts of the robot with various time limits. The business team department would work hard making newsletters and updating the social media. The newsletters written can be found at Team’s 223 website. This department also designed various team buttons that the Lancers would hand out at the competition.
Overall, the LRHS Robotics Club shows what it means to be a Lancer. They put their best foot forward with as much pride and confidence as they can.
