Young engineers send their robots into battle
Metal robots skittered on their wheels, trying to push around blocks and dunk balls into tubes Thursday afternoon at Ensign Intermediate School’s gymnasium in Newport Beach.
The contraptions were controlled and operated by students across Newport-Mesa Unified for the school district’s first-ever Robotics Competition and Showcase.
Almost 100 young engineers in grades 5-8 hauled their VEX robots — complete with wheels, claws and other gear — into the Ensign arenas.
“It’s a fun hobby,” said Aiden Lewis-Grenz, an Ensign eighth-grader. “And anyone can get into it.”
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According to Christie Darnall of the district’s Educational Technology Department, the competition was held so that young robotics enthusiasts from Newport Beach and Costa Mesa could connect, collaborate and share ideas.
The event’s fifth- and sixth-graders all took part in one competition, where their plastic robots had to capture orange balls in one end of the arena and launch them into a scoring zone on the other.
The Andersen, Davis, Killybrooke and Newport Heights elementary school teams had three minutes to drop as many balls into the zone as possible.
By the end, Davis emerged victorious, taking first place, while Newport Heights came in second, Andersen third and Killybrooke fourth.
Besides building and operating their devices, many students said they have taken away other lessons.
“You learn about teamwork because you have to work with your partner to put together all the pieces,” said TeWinkle seventh-grader Christopher Newell.
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The seventh- and eighth-graders — from Ensign and TeWinkle intermediate schools — took their robots into battle across the gym.
Their arena hosted several rounds of friendly competition, where four robots went head to head in each round.
The arena was half red and half blue. Two robots on the red side and two robots on the blue side had to capture as many blocks and balls of their team’s color as they could.
The red objects rested on the blue side, and the blue objects on the red side. The teams needed to cross enemy lines to snatch their blocks and balls, leading to robot collisions as they all raced to finish first.
“[Our robotics club] hasn’t gotten a chance to play with other people, so being able to try out our bot today was cool,” said Brendan Picquelle, an Ensign eighth-grader.
Many students came representing their after-school robotics clubs, while others are from campus robotics classes.
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Alex Chan, alexandra.chan@latimes.com
Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
