Robotics competition is a first for Bath County Students.

For about three months now a robotics team at Bath County High school has been preparing for its first competition.  Students have been programming, designing parts for, and assembling the robot.

Jordan is a member of the robotics team, and has done his research to prepare for the competition the team will enter.

“ We went to a competition.  I saw a lot of ideas; things we should not do, and things we probably should do.”

There has been a lot of programming involved in getting the robot ready, but he also observed that mechanical parts play a big role in how well it performs.

“Some of those wheels loose traction on the ramp, and some of them are too grippy, and some of them are just perfect” says Jordan.

Alex is another member of the robotics team. Last year was devoted to planning for this robotics project.  And work on the robot started in earnest this fall.

“This year, seeing how it has actually progressed into something, I jumped on the chance,” says Alex.

“ I was mainly focused on building and problem solving. We had to change it many times.  I don’t expect to go all the way.  Not since this is our first year, but it’ll be a good experience for us.”

The team can design and build some of the parts on a 3D printer in the technology class room.  This saves them money because they don’t have to order the parts online.

Ed Ozuls is the Engineering and Technology Education Teacher at the high school .

“After we do the competition and at the end of the month, we’re going to come back and figure out what we can do better for the next time around.” says Ozuls.  “The great thing is we’ve got a whole lot more time to prepare for next year’s contest, than we did for this year’s contest because we didn’t get the robot, the robot parts, until October, where a lot of the teams we’ll be competing against have been in robotics for years. But the good thing about it is, we can talk to the other teams, and they give us pointers. It’s a great competition in that manner”.

The Bath County High school students will be competing against about 40 other teams in Orange County, Virginia on January 31^st.