Finger Tightans heading to robotics World Championships

RIVERSIDE - After a successful run at the state competition, the Highland High School robotics team, the Finger Tightans, is moving on to the World Championships in Detroit.

This is the fourth year the team has gone to the championship, where the top 2.5% of teams from around the world participate. The Finger Tightans will compete in one of two divisions against 63 other groups. This year, students were tasked with building robots that could stack blocks.

In preparation for the competition in late April, the team is busy at work fundraising to cover costs of the trip and to buy parts to further enhance their robot. While the school provides transportation and pays for an instructor to go with students to the competition, the team is responsible for funding all other expenses.

Senior Emily Streb said the largest costs for the team is the $2,000 entrance fee for the competition and lodging costs for the members, which comes in at about $8,000 in total. Streb is one of two seniors who has attended Worlds all four years. She said the business team generally spends their time scouting other teams, taking stats and watching other robots. Streb added the global competition is great for networking and making friends.

'We've made connections with teams from other countries. One of our favorite teams is from the Netherlands. They're Pink to the Future and they wear pink suits and they're amazing and always fun to talk to. There's a team from China that translates to 'screw it,” which we think is funny,” she said.

High school science teacher and robotics team coach Tim Surine added Worlds gives the students an opportunity to learn from the best teams around the world and try to incorporate what they learn in subsequent competitions.

'They're solving real-world problems and gaining skills that are marketable later on for them,” he said.

Surine added the team has done decently well in the past at the competition. Last year, the Finger Tightans came in at 32nd and hope to move up even more in the ranks. The science teacher added the team is also looking to compete at a level that will make them attractive to other teams as alliance members in the competition.

While the team has made it to the Worlds in the past, this year at state, not all members were certain they would be moving on to the global competition. Senior Matt Butler said the team went three and three in their qualification matches, which had the team 'sweating a little.”

Fortunately, the Finger Tightans caught the eye of one of the top four teams to form an alliance.

'After the qualification matches, the top four teams get to pick alliances, we were second pick for the first alliance. So we ended up with two of the top 20 teams in the world. Both of those teams were from Iowa and since we were in 12th place, we were a little under the radar, and they picked us. That worked out really great for us. We were able to hold our own with them. We actually swept each of those matches,” Butler said.

'The reason we were scared was because we know the caliber of teams that were going to be there and we just weren't sure exactly how we were going to stack up. We lucked out and we had a good robot,” he added.

Moving forward, the team expects to face even tougher competition and are looking for ways to continue to enhance their robot. Butler said the team is hoping to improve the their score through the 30-second autonomous period at the beginning of each round. The senior explained during the autonomous period the robot does a series of tasks on its own without being given commands. The team is looking at is enhancing their robot's lift speed.

'We wasted a lot of time waiting for it to come up and now we're looking at switching out the motor so it can go up a little faster. We're just trying to make a couple tweaks and get in a ton of driver practice,” he said.