ASK robotics team ready to compete

Posted: Sunday, October 9, 2011 12:00 am | Updated: 4:45 pm, Fri Oct 7, 2011.
BY GLEN ROSALES
Observer staff writer | 0 comments
With a wooden platform, some improvised wheels and a tangled web of wires, the contraption at the ASK Academy hardly looks like the stereotypical robot.
But, explains junior Blayne Beglue - who is in charge of the academy's strategy for the upcoming BEST 2011 competition that will be held in Las Cruces Oct. 22 - the current version is just a prototype used to determine what's needed for the final version.
BEST stands for Boosting Engineering, Science & Technology.
"It's still evolving," he said of the work. "We're still putting things together to see how it all will work."
This is the first time the ASK Academy team has entered the BEST competition, but the group is no stranger to robotics competitions.
Because of the nature of the competition, however, the ASK Academy team needed to form a pseudo company to deal with some of the logistics involved, said sophomore Samantha Kellogg-Howell.
That included creating a website askandroids.weebly.com, as well as a marketing plan.
Under the competition rules, the teams are vying for a government contract to track down genetically engineered bugs that had escaped their containment fields.
The enhanced flies, cockroaches and termites pose a threat to the community, and if the escape is not contained quickly, it could doom the research project, according to the competition prospectus.
To help preserve the research, the bugs need to be captured alive, segregated in separate containment fields and then fed to keep them healthy and content.
What's more, all of this needs to be done in three minutes, with a spotter helping a remote-control operator steer the robot on its mission.
The containment fields are progressively more difficult to reach, with the final one littered with mounds of construction debris.
That might require the addition of an extendable arm that can reach over the debris field to drop the bugs into the containment area, Beglue said.
The class has to design the motherboard and install the power strip to make the operation possible, said sophomore Austin Reed.
It's all "pretty challenging," said Reed, who plans to study engineering when he reaches college.
"I took a class in robotics and it was really fun, so when I saw this, I decided to join," he said.
Not everybody on the team was quite so enthused about it, said freshman Natalie Paulk.
"My dad made me join," she said. "But I'm enjoying it now. It looks good on a college application."
Sophomore Valeria Valencia succumbed to peer pressure in joining the group.
"I was advised by my peers to get involved," she said. "They kept insisting that I join, so I did. We're pretty much a family here. We have our differences but in the end, we all come through."
Ashley Ivins, who teaches robotics and biomedical science at the school, is the team's sponsor and said it's a positive experience for the school to be involved in the competitions.
"They have to work together to do all of this," she said. "It makes them use a lot of different things that they learn here."
In addition to showing their mettle in the competition on the field, the teams must also wow judges with their marketing and business plans.
"It's definitely a fun project," Kellogg-Howell said. "This is something that helps us get ready for everything after college."
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