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Interview with Big Time Botballer, Daniel Zhang
by Clara Washburn
Q: What is Botball?
A: It’s a group of West Middle School kids from 6th through 8th grade that work together to make a robot that will eventually compete in a regional tournament against other robots built by other schools and clubs.
Q: When did Botball start?
A: Botball starts in beginning of the school year and ends right after the competition is over. We meet every week with Ms. Coughlin. It started on Tuesdays, but later changed to Fridays. As we got closer to the tournament, we had it everyday for about two weeks in order to work out any bugs and perfect our robot.
Q: How did you get interested in Botball?
A: Well, I think it’s fun to do and see how to build and program a robot, and also my friends were in it.
Q: Who is on the team?
A: Noah Appleby of 7th grade and I did a little bit of everything. Our Master Programmer was Karmesh of 8th grade and another programmer was 7th grader, Jeffery Gilkie. Our Master Builder was Chris Rollins from 7th grade, and other builders were P.J. Traub of 6th grade, Andrew Reimer of 7th grade, Leo Wu and Yen Wu of 8th grade.
Q: What was the goal of the competition?
A: There was an obstacle course that was set up with an environmental theme of animal preservation. There were four spots of black foam, which is meant to be oil spills. On the “oil” spots, there are rubber ducks that need to be saved. The robot had to drive forward, do a couple turns, and push the rubber ducks off the oil spots. The team got one point for each duck it saved.
Q: What did your robot look like and how did it work?
A: The robot was on a circular base called "iRobot Create”, which is a basic programmable robot machine with wheels. It could move in all directions. In the middle of the base there was a metal structure that motors were connected to so the robot could carry out functions. Our main computer sat in the middle of the base and the computer program that our team wrote told the robot what functions to carry out.
Q: What changes did you have to make to the robot so that it was successful?
A: We had an arm for the robot that could trap, lift, and carry things away, but we didn’t use it in the competition because we realized it was too heavy for the motor to carry. We did use a plow, which is another kind of arm that pushed the objects. That worked much better.
Q: When and where was the competition held this year?
A: The competition was on Saturday, April 10th at UMASS Lowell in one of their gyms.
Q: How many schools were in the competition?
A: There were about 15-20 different schools, organizations, and clubs who entered the competition.
Q: What other events were in the contest?
A: There were other parts to the competition, but we didn’t have the right equipment so we just entered one event. Also, you could have 2 robots, but we only had one.
Q: Did you get any awards?
A: We got the Outstanding Middle School Award for Best Performance of the Robot, which was very surprising.
Q: Would you like to acknowledge anyone who helped along the way?
A: I would like to thank Ms. Coughlin, who was our fabulous supervisor. She stayed after school and used her Saturday to be with us. I would also like to thank all of the team parents for all their support.
