Macomb Robotics Team Wins Design Award At State

With just three members, Macomb’s robotics team is one of the smallest in its competitive category.

The team’s work, however, is mighty.

Macomb’s FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics Team 5967 won first place for the Design Award at the FIRST Oklahoma Regional Tournament, Feb. 12, a state-level competition. The team also took third place in the Connect Award.

Due to COVID-19 social distancing precautions, a maximum team size of 15 team members was set for the tournament, so Macomb was competing against teams that had up to five times their membership present at the tournament.

For team captain and high school senior Kahleen Dabbs, the 2022 state tournament was her second time competing at the state level.

“This time was a lot different just because of COVID and everything going on, but it was a lot bigger of a competition,” she said. “And there, it’s, you get more nervous because there’s a lot more on the line at the state level.”

Succeeding in robotics is challenging.

“Trying to find solutions to complex problems is really the biggest thing and you’re on a time crunch, you don’t have a really long time to do it,” Dabbs said. “You have, ‘Okay, we have one more week until our next competition you got to go’.”

At competitions, teams have tasks that they must complete with their robot.

“This year specifically, was very difficult because you couldn’t bump into anything,” Dabbs said. “If you touch something, that’s a penalty. If you bump into more than one piece of freight, that’s a penalty. If you set your block down too hard, and it moves the storage hub, that’s a penalty. So a lot of things you did you had to be very meticulous and precise about what you were doing.”

Solving these challenges requires creativity.

“You have to find interesting and unique ways to solve the problems effectively,” high school senior and robotics team member Blake Isenhower said.

Each student has a key role on the team.

“It’s pretty amazing how far we’ve made it with how small our team size is compared to others and our amount of funding that we have,” Isenhower said.

Dabbs’ work documenting their design process as the Macomb team created their robot was key in leading the team to its Design Award.

“She’s went through that pre-engineering program,” Macomb High School Science Teacher and Robotics Coach Wayne Howard said. “And so, she’s an engineer already, and she’s already been accepted into OSU, to their engineering program. And so we’re pretty proud of what she put together and I’ll say it’s about the documentation and being able to back it up.”

Gaining this success took the efforts of al three team members.

“When the judges talk to them, they know why they did what they did, and how to make it how to keep it going,” Howard said.

While Dabbs is the team programer and helped put together the notebook documenting their design process, Isenhower and high school freshman Khoury Burleson drive the robot, and all three helped build the robot.

“Khoury (Burleson)’s driving I think is what really got us through state, and got us ranked where we were,” Dabbs said.

Burleson said driving was the most challenging part of robotics for him.

“If you don’t have the right stuff plugged in, or if something gets unplugged, and you can’t drive it very well,” he said.

Not only do students have to work together within their own team, they also have to work well with other teams, in order to succeed.

“Usually when you go to a competition, you’re there to compete, you’re not there to help people, you’re there to do what you need to do,” Dabbs said. “But at a FIRST, any kind of FIRST Robotics meet, people help each other. And it is a community for learning and things like that.”

The Macomb team received support from other teams.

“We got a lot of help on our programming from other teams,” Dabbs said. “Our power switch was given to us by another team. And while you’re in this environment, you’re working with people and you’re competing against them. So you kind of build connections and networks there. Like, I have a friend from Mustang who I met at a robotics meet, and we’re still friends years later, from that.”

The team also supported other teams during the competition.

Howard said that at one event there had been an all-girls team that was struggling with their robot.

“Their robot wasn’t moving and they didn’t have a clue about how to program it to go, so (Dabbs) went over and showed them how to, you know, do some basic programming,” he said.

Macomb’s robotics program began in approximately 2008, with a FIRST LEGO League team, and it was this team that introduced all of Macomb’s current high school team members to robotics.

“(Howard) offered it to elementary students, to join the team and things like that,” Dabbs said. “And that’s how I got started, was in FIRST LEGO League, and we always shared, like, a working room with the FTC (First Tech Challenge) team. So once I was old enough, I was very excited to move to the FIRST Tech Challenge team.”

The team is sponsored by Macomb Public Schools, Floretta Walgren, and Holt Trailer, this year.