Robots scooting across the “field,” robotically picking up bright green balls to place in a “barge,” with high school students controlling every move from a computer panel behind sheets of Plexiglas.
For the more mature set, perhaps, a bit futuristic. Think the Jetsons meet Generation Z.
For the younger set, the future is now.
Several hundred students representing nearly 30 schools from as far away as Mississippi and Florida gathered Sept. 13 at Denham Springs High School to compete in the Dow Red Stick Rumble, a showcase of young minds flaunting their creativity and technical smarts.
Daniel Eiland, who has served as Denham Springs robotics coach since 2019 after serving eight years in a similar capacity at Woodland High School in Shreveport, said each robot is designed, engineered and finally built by students during a two-month period at the beginning of the second semester.
Eiland said all of the parts are 3D designed by using machine tools, routers and mills, helping the students build a foundation machinery and programming.
Robots are programed through the use of JAVA, an advanced, general purpose program intended to allow programmers to write code to run on all supporting platforms without the need to recompile. Eiland said most engineer students are not introduced to JAVA until college or after they join the work force.
Denham Springs student Nathan Thompson explained that each team has two drivers operating the robot, one steering the wheels and the second the rest of the operation. By rule, each robot must be programed to operate the first 30 seconds of each “game” without a driver, only jumping in when a bell rings.
The moves are intricate, as each robot is programmed to pick up a ball and raise it like a human would raise one’s arm and place the ball in the large barge that sits high atop the field.
Also, robots must pick up rings from a station and place each on a “tree” to earn more points.
But for all of its intricacies, Eiland said robotics is much more than a glitzy display of modern technology. Rather, he explained students are exposed to a multi-faceted business dimension that helps build life skills.
Eiland said the business team is focused on fundraising, marketing, making presentations to potential sponsors and presenting awards..
“We have an entire team whose goal is to talk about what our team does,” he said. “They are presenting to professional judges when we go to events.”
Additionally, students will make presentations at the Louisiana State Capitol and have also spoken at the Michoud NASA plant in New Orleans East.
“Whenever we go (to Michoud) we have to talk to their engineers as to what we are doing,” Eiland said. “Students are educated in all of these things, life skills they can bring to the workforce.”
Fundraising is of particular importance for without money the team would not have the proper equipment and funding for travel. Annually fundraising goals can top out at $150,000.
“We don’t sell cookies and candy,” Eiland said. “We go talk to sponsors and the students present a portfolio of what we do, and where their sponsorship money is going.”
“Everything you find in a marketing agency is what they do,” he said. “I like to think of them almost like a Fortune 500 company.
“They are getting skills they would never have otherwise, he added.”
Depending on the school, teams will travel throughout the region, including Denham Springs which have competed in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and the Bayou Regional. The team scored adequate points to earn a spot in the world tournament in Houston earlier this year where 600 teams from places such as Israel, Mexico, Japan and Turkey competed.
At the end of the Dow Red Stick Rumble, the winning alliance was made up of Denham Venom from Denham Springs, the SWLA Tech Pirates from Lake Charles and KNOS Robotics from New Orleans.
The team alliance was captured by Denham Venom, which went undefeated in the playoff matches.
For more information on the Denham Venom, visit https://www.denhamspringshs.org/denham-venom.