Area Schools Face Off in Northern Minnesota Robotics Conference Competition

This past weekend, robotics teams from high schools all around the state gathered in Alexandria to attend the Northern Minnesota Robotic Conference’s Robotics Competition.

The competition aspect of this event consists of two teams of robots going head-to-head to complete basic tasks, like shooting a ball into a basket or climbing a ladder.

“Usually it’s a team of three robots. Their objective is to program a robot to drive itself for the first 30 seconds,” explained Kelliher Bog Bots team member Evan Waldo. “Then for about a minute and a half, you’ll be driving, trying to score points by depositing some sort of item like a box or a ball into some sort of net or basket.”

“There’s also a traversal, which is like a set of monkey bars you have to climb up,” said Pequot Lakes Patriotics team member Carter Nolan.

Robotics as a sport has a lot of moving parts both literally and figuratively, and that means everyone can latch onto something they enjoy.

“You could be anybody and you could drive, you could build, you can program all the parts of the robot,” explained Bemidji RoboJacks team member Samuel Maus.

“I really like that comradery between the team, and I really like the experience that I have getting to build and help out engineering the robot,” said Nolan.

Friday night’s competition saw teams from Northwood, ND, Alexandria, and Nevis crowned as champions, with teams from Pequot Lakes, Babbitt and Bemidji taking home second place.