Robotics Team Wired for Success

From 71 teams competing, the St. Mark's Robotics Team placed second in the BEST Robotics Texas Championship (non-UIL division) held at Dallas’ Fair Park Nov. 30 – Dec. 3. The team also won “Top Exhibit and Interview.”

 

The game theme this year was named “Incision Decision” where the local team built a robot to mimic, on a large scale, surgical operations on a playing field. In the game, there are dozens of challenges that earn points relative to their complexity. A robot driver and spotter have three minutes to earn as many points as possible. Their robot was primarily designed to autonomously retrieve playing field “organs” and relocate “veins” from one area of the playing field to another. Both challenges were very complex and scored high points in the game.

 

For the past 12 weeks, students have used class time, free hours during the school day, after school hours, weekends and many late nights to prepare for the competition. The team had to create marketing presentations, build a tradeshow-style booth, write a 30-page engineering notebook and, of course, develop a working robot.  

“I’m so proud of our team, for working so hard and never giving up,” said Stewart Mayer, Makerspace director and Robotics Team co-sponsor. “Their commitment has paid off, and St. Mark’s is becoming well-known for our engineering programs.

 

Team members included seniors William Clarke, Preston Ghafar, Baker Long, Vivek Patel, Arav Rawat, Baxter Perry-Miller and Nate Wilson; juniors Matthew Jordan and Aaron Schildkraut; and sophomores Marshall Bagley, Jackson Barnes, Ronit Kongara, William Loftus, Ronen Verma.

 

Coaches included  Mayer, Stephen M. Seay ’68 Science Department Chair Fletch Carron, former faculty member Doug Rummel and aerospace engineer Will Ferenc ’09.