When Sandy High School senior Justin Newberry was a freshman in 2010, he took part in the school’s first year of robotics competitions. Newberry’s robot came in last place at his first tournament, but he ended up in an alliance of teams that went to that year’s VEX world competition and ran off eight consecutive wins.

Now, after four years for the program to gain traction, while Newberry will not
be going to this year’s VEX Robotics World Championship, held April 23
through 26 in Anaheim, Calif., he can cheer three teams from Sandy that will,
plus the two teams from Sandy that will compete at the US Open Robotics
Championship in Nebraska from April 3-5.

“It’s just important to know that anything is accomplishable,” Newberry, 18,
said. “You can achieve anything you want to achieve if you put your mind to it
and dedicate yourself to it.”

The high school’s program featured nine teams consisting of up to four
students who build and program a robot to compete against other robots.
Competitions take place in a 12-foot by 12-foot platform where each team
tries to score points by placing balls in certain scoring zones.

Competitions last for two minutes, with a 15-second automated section to
begin the competition where the robots must perform autonomously. During
the remainder of the competition, a team member drives the robots.

Sandy went to six league tournaments this year and the state tournament.

The teams competing at the world competition are 1460B: Jakob Eslinger,
Mason Colbry and Kodi Lang; 1460J: Josh Paugh, Nathan Kentner, Angel Dzul
and Josh Anderson; 1460G: Matt Dunlap, Paul Tidball and Ryan Swinson. The
teams competing at the US Open competition are 1460B and 1460E: Daniel
Hardin, Nicholas Chan, Esten Barker, Andrew Hokanson, Soren Ofstie and
Phoenix Gan.

Team members are hard at work preparing for their next challenge, and some
have big changes to implement before the world competition. Paugh, a tenth
grader from Boring, noted his team will upgrade the motor with a planetary
gearbox in order to switch between going fast and using higher torque in
order to push other robots around.

Tidball, a 15-year-old sophomore from Sandy, will do a complete robot rebuild
with his team because the wheels have fallen off during previous competitions
(luckily it could operate on three wheels).

“That was very annoying,” said Tidball, who plans on pursuing a master’s
degree in mechanical engineering at Portland State University. “They were
attached by one collar.”

Eslinger’s team is not making any drastic changes to their robot, but focusing
on programming the autonomous modes.

The winner of that stage gets a 10-point bonus that can determine who wins
and who loses.

“Matches are typically close enough it can make the difference,” said Eslinger,
a 15-year-old sophomore, who added he programmed a “secret” autonomous
mode before the state finals.

Bob Tisch, who teaches a class on robotics at the high school and serves as
the program’s advisor, noted many of the students work on their robots for up
to a year, serving as a great educational project outside their normal studies.
“I think it’s a competitive thing, like in sports,” Tisch said. “It motivates kids;
it’s also kind of exciting building a robot.”

Tisch noted there were approximately 60 teams in Oregon this year, up from
16 when things first got started in 2010. He added there could be upwards of
100 next year.

In addition to those changes, Sandy’s program has changed drastically since
it’s inception, when Tisch found some VEX robot parts in a cupboard at the old
high school and decided to get things started.

One big addition is a practice platform in his classroom at the new high
school, where teams can work out their kinks before competitions.

“Before we’d have to go to a portable room and set up to actually practice,”
said Tisch, who also noted parents and area businesses have been very
supportive of the program.

And Tisch credited the support his students give to each other as a big reason
for the success and growth of the program, something that Newberry echoed
about the teams he’s met at competitions.

“For being as competitive as it is, it’s a really friendly environment,” he said,
noting that students often go from competing head to head one minute to
asking for (and receiving) help the next.

“We’ve got a really good batch of kids in the Oregon VEX league.”