Collaborating through robotics

Overlake’s robotics team has been growing over the last few years. Overlake now fields two robotics teams, one composed of entirely freshmen girls, and is considering a third team if there is enough interest.

In a robotics competition, the goal goes beyond just winning but also collaborating and learning from other teams. For a portion of the competition, teams will be paired up, likely with a team from another school and will have to work together to accomplish the given tasks. Pairs are generally posted an hour prior to competition giving teams not much more than an hour to scout and collaborate with their newfound teammates and form a game plan with them.

“Throughout the competition there’s an awful lot of comradery,” says David Basham, Robotics Coach.

Teams are eager to learn from each other share knowledge, helpful hints, and to help each other out if they get in trouble. “The motto of FTC(First Tech Challenge), is ‘gracious professionalism’,” explains Basham. “Maybe there’s this team that you’re neck and neck with, but if they have a wheel fall off, if you have an extra wheel, you’re implicitly expected to give it to them, AND actually take the time to help them put it on.” He even recalls a competition where they couldn’t figure out why their robot wasn’t working properly, and it was another team that noticed that their wheels were on backwards and pointed it out to them in time for the competition.

Check out this video to learn more about how a robotics competition is structured and how teams compete.