'Nothing But Net' the name of the game at robotics tournament in Batavia
The name of the game is Nothing But Net. The goal? Score higher than your opponent by launching balls into a net for two minutes using a robot your team spent weeks building. The reward? A spot at the World VEX Robotics competition in Louisville, Kentucky.
Thirty-two high school teams and 24 middle school teams from across Illinois competed for spots in the world competition Saturday at Rotolo Middle School in Batavia.
Each year, the game robots are expected to perform is different, but teams all must order parts from VEX Robotics. The game is announced in the summer and teams can tweak their designs as they see fit.
Nothing But Net is played on a 12-foot by 12-foot field. Teams are paired randomly to form an alliance to play against another randomly-paired duo.
The first 15 seconds of the game is an autonomy round where robots are programmed to shoot balls into their team's designated net, either red or blue.
After a score for the autonomy round is calculated, teams pick up the controllers and try to get as many balls into their alliance's net as they can for the remaining 1 minute and 45 seconds.
The Steel Pythons, part of Fox Valley Robotics based in Batavia, have been working together as a team since 5th grade. Now almost out of high school, team members all wear a signature steel gray button-up shirt and dark tie. They started off in Lego competitions, and have honed their building and robotics skills over the years.
Betsy Zinser is the coach of the team and can be spotted darting from field to field taking notes on teams the Steel Pythons could be paired with or compete against in the elimination matches. Zinser's son, Ben is on the team.
"In the beginning, everything was built with their hands first and there was so much trial and error," Zinser said. "Now that they're more experienced in physics, math and programming, there's more planning, designing and engineering that goes into it."
The Steel Pythons were in the top rankings through much of Saturday's tournament.
Another top-ranking team, the DuPage-Kane STEM-VEX Robo team, includes students who have been involved with the team from one to four years.
They say it takes a lot of trial and error to design and build the best-performing robot.
The team, which is based at Bartlett High School, started with one robot, which took them three weeks to build, in October, but then started over with a completely new design over winter break, said Kyle Calvert, 17, a senior.
"We were meeting every day after school and during school from Jan. 16 to Feb. 16, about three hours a day," Calvert said. They often met over weekends, too.
This is the first year 18-year-old senior Julia Santos competed with the team and she says she's learned a lot.
"It's exciting to see how many different phases the robot goes through," Santos said. "And I've learned it's good to split up the work to get multiple things going at the same time."
Senior Kevin Worytko, 17, has been on the team for four years and says robotics competitions require lots of communication.
"It helps to have negotiation skills in an alliance," he says, so that each team in the alliance can completely express their robot's strengths.