Brayden Law, 17, and Dana Schrock, 16, carefully carried their robot SCooBY out onto the field. Myla Clemesten, 15, finished setting up the robot while her brother, Max,17, worked on the code.
SCooBY would be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.
They only had 15 seconds to throw the pitch. The rest of their team cheered them on from the dugout. But SCooBY wasn’t cooperating.
Suddenly, Max picks up the ball and throws it as hard as he can. After that, they were rushed off the field. The robot malfunctioned.
“So we lost the connection between the radio and the robo rio,” he said.
Once SCooBY was back on their table, the Ionizers got to work. Poking and pulling on wires to find the error. The parts used were donated to the team and manufactured in 2017. The students found out the receiver for the controller died. Schrock was researching the broken part and showing it to her team.
“There was nothing we could have done,” she said.
SCooBY was built three weeks before the event and tested over two dozen times. This was their first outreach event. They became an official FIRST Robotics team in May.
FIRST is a national STEM competition. It has contests for all ages, separated into three competitions. Typically, the students are assigned a challenge. From there, they build a robot up for the task.
For that night, the group came up with their own challenge, simulating what a real competition would be like.
Teams are usually based out of a school. But the Ionizers are a community group. Anyone can join as long as they meet the age requirement.
In a competition, the Ionizer will have time to rebuild and try again. Unfortunately, there were no do-overs at the Reno Aces.
After the issue was found, Myla felt embarrassed.
“This was like our one outreach thing where we could, like, look cool,” she said. “This was like the biggest one.”
Schrock assured her that there will be more opportunities in the future to “look cool.” The team needs to raise $50,000 in order to attend the competition.
The teens learned a lot from this experience and are more excited for their future. FIRST Robotics Competition boots up in January. It will be the Ionizor’s first year attending.
