Heritage High Robotics Teams Compete in Regionals

Three robotics teams from Heritage High School will compete in a regional tournament Saturday in Monrovia.

Three robotics teams from Heritage High School will compete in the Los Angeles Regional Tournament of the US FIRST Tech Challenge Saturday at Monrovia High School.

Heritage High has six robotics teams that work year-round to build and operate robots for various challenges. They compete in several tournaments throughout the Southland. Three of those teams -- Gear Gurus, Machine Kings and Patriotic Robotics -- will be among 48 teams competing for the right to move on to the Super Regionals, which is held in Oakland March 24-26.

Each team has approximately 6-10 members, said Stacey MacPherson, a teacher at Heritage High and advisor for the teams.

"Students on the teams design their robot based on the challenge presented and the strategy they find will work best," MacPherson said. "After designing their robot, they build their robot to meet their design and program it to perform the tasks at hand. The students learn how to program android phones that work via wifi direct to operate the robot. They also program buttons on a 'playstation' type controller to maneuver their robot as they need."

Each match includes two periods. In the autonomous period, the robot is programmed to perform a task on its own without driver control. In the driver period, students drive the robot with the controllers (see illustration). Points are earned during match play by scoring debris on the field in the floor goals or the mountain goals, releasing climbers down the zip line, parking in the rescue zone, or various levels of scaling the mountain. The ultimate goal is to hang from the high bar.

In a two-day competition hosted by the Perris Union High School District Jan. 30-31, Heritage students set up the event, built the game fields, set up the pit area and took on all volunteer roles. As a host of that event, Patriotic Robotics earned a spot in the Los Angeles Regional Tournament.

Machine Kings qualified for Saturday's regionals by winning a tournament in Palm Desert Jan. 9. Gear Gurus qualified in a later competition in Hemet.