Rookie robotics team battles to the top

Friday, Apr. 08, 2016

SALT LAKE CITY — The JudgeMent Call Robotics team from Judge Memorial Catholic High School won the 2016 Utah Regional US First Robotics competition, and will advance to the 2016 World Competition.

More than 3,100 teams from 24 countries will participate in this year’s global competition, which will be celebrating its 25th year.

Although this was the first year that a team from Judge Memorial entered the competition, The JudgeMent Call Robotics team earned the finalist status, the Rookie All-Star Award, and the Highest Seeded Rookie Award. 

Team members are Henry Anderson, Jing Chen, Chris Clyne, Eric Hall, Tanner Larson, Kevin (Jonghyuk) Lee, Hanna (Hanzheng) Qi, Kepler Sticka-Jones, Joey Thomas, Declan Van Uitert, Kyle Williams and Grace Wise. 

“Winning the Rookie All-Star Award was an awesome experience,” said Hall in a press release from the school. “We could not have done it without all our captains and teammates. Impressing the judges took a lot of work, but we did it with our flexible structure, dedicated members, and our own impressive robot, Rosie.” 

The inaugural US First Robotics competition in Utah was held in 2010. It was attended by about 1,000 local high school students competing as 30 teams. 

The students built and programed robots capable of collecting balls and delivering them to goals.

Since then, the competition has evolved into robot wars with metallic catapults and blockades.

This year more than 40 high school teams from Utah and the West participated at the event.

“FIRST students have a unique opportunity to invent, practice teamwork, and run a business, all while using real-world hardware and working with mentors from industry,” said Mark Minor, the competition’s Utah regional chair and a University of Utah associate professor of mechanical engineering. 

To prepare for the competition, from Jan. 9 through Feb. 23 the Judge team created their robot, which they named Rosie.

“Driving the robot in the competition was an amazing experience where we stretched our communication skills,” said Larson in the press release from the school. “The different aspects of controlling the robot were split between the drive train for the primary driver, and arm and spindle control for the secondary driver. As we maneuvered around the field each day we got progressively better, going from bending the arm nearly every practice match to gliding around the field like veterans in the finals.” 

The Utah regional event was cosponsored by the University of Utah’s College of Engineering, the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development STEM Action Center, Larry H. Miller Group of Companies, L-3 Communications and Tesoro Corp.

“Even though I am graduating this year I look forward to seeing where JudgeMent Call goes in the future,” said Sticka-Jones. “I would be honored to come back and help out as a mentor in the years to come. But first, it’s on to the world competition.” 

A team from Juan Diego Catholic High School also participated in the competition, coming in third among the Utah teams and 9th overall.

The 2016 Utah Regional US First Robotics competition included 10 veteran teams from all over the country along with teams from 30 Utah private school, charter school and public school teams.