Beehive students bound for robotics world championships

Beehive Science & Technology Academy’s The Hive is heading to the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics world championships.

As one of 32 teams that qualified for the state tournament, including teams from Holladay, Sandy, Riverton, Cottonwood Heights, Taylorsville, South Jordan, West Jordan, Midvale and other local communities, The Hive contributes much of their success to experience and resiliency. They received the “The Inspire Award,” which is an automatic bid to worlds, which will include more than 1,000 teams from 66 countries meeting April 29 to May 2 in Houston.

After hundreds of hours and four different versions of their robot, Topaz, and a qualifier win the week before, state didn’t go as planned for the 15-member team from Sandy.

“State was a super up and down day, more than any other competition,” senior Jonah Wood said. “Our first match, our robot disconnected. It wasn't something we can really control, just bad luck. We lost the match because of that. The second match, a wire broke, so we lost that one. We did a super quick fix, and got it working again, but it was stressful. And if you lose two out of your five, it was a little heartbreaking.”

Team captain and senior Neset Kablan continued: “We won the third and fourth matches, but we couldn't score for most of the match because a gear on the robot came unscrewed, so we couldn't shoot for the rest of the match. We played defense against the other robots, we won that match, but it was very disappointing.”

The week before the competition, Beehive hosted 10 schools for practice scrimmages.

“We were scoring over 200 points, way above state records. That helped other teams see we’re a promising team, and they could see the problems were outside of our control, but we picked ourselves back up – and that’s what helped when picking alliances,” Kablan said. “It was really disheartening, because if we could score, we would have done a lot better. It was a very rough day to go through.”

Before worlds, the team plans to rework wiring and build in more practice time to troubleshoot issues.

Experience has been key with 13 returning members.

“This season is the culmination we've had over the past three years our group has been together and we know what we’re doing, so we've been able to achieve a lot more,” Kablan said. “It makes a big difference when talking about team productivity. Before, we had a lot of people who didn't have previous experience in robotics, so it was teaching. But also, ‘how do you work together as a team?’ We made multiple iterations of the robot, because this is a shooter year where the robot shoots the balls whereas, like previous years, you've had to pick something up and place it. So, for all of us, including the coaches, it’s new.”

Wood said the team’s two-robot system, one for mechanical work, another for programming, accelerated their progress.

“This was one of the first years we had the resources to do that, material-wise, but also experience-wise,” he said.

The season kicked off in September, when Wood was overseas. He watched the robot game reveal and immediately began sketching ideas.

“I started working on CAD for the robot,” he said. “When I got back, there were three days before our first competition.”

The Hive rapidly built and tested, often prototyping parts in wood before fabricating them in aluminum.

“We built a lot of these pieces individually out of wood before we actually ended up cutting it out of aluminum to make sure they worked and that our geometry is right, because sometimes the actual theory of a piece doesn't work in practice,” Kablan said. “We spent most of our time testing, which means that this robot is a darn good robot. It has a very high potential.”

Since state, the team has been fundraising to pay for travel costs. Senior Leah Hammond said last summer’s three-week robotics camp for 200 youth raised $14,000. It’s supplemented by food sales at the school’s fall festival, plus corporate donations and grants.

Hammond said the program teaches more than robotics.

“The most valuable thing in the program is learning how to work in a team,” she said. “It’s valuable to be able to work with other people, learn to delegate tasks and be able to communicate. Those are good skills that are valuable in any job.”

Wood agrees: “When you like think about robotics, you think of a bunch of nerdy introverts, which is what robotics is. And nerdy introverts suck at communicating, no engineer works alone. Everyone works in a team. I've met a ton of smart people, but if you can't work in the team, you can't use anything you know. Being able to communicate what you know and work with a team allows you to be so much more.”

Kablan, who comes from a family involved in robotics, said humility has been his biggest lesson.

“The hardest lesson I've learned is to strip that ego down and to learn from other people,” he said. “I have connected with tons of teams across the world, and some of those teams have been, performance-wise, worse than ours, but that doesn't matter. They all have some kind of lesson to give, and I have some kind of lesson to learn from them. That's the most important lesson I've learned from robotics.”

Beehive’s robotics program has earned multiple state titles and under coach Annie Drennan, 13 teams have advanced to worlds. 

“There's a bit of pressure,” Hammond said. “At state, there were more than 30 teams from all around the world watching our Utah championship to see us make worlds. That's not the mentality we have as a team, but there can be external pressure. At worlds, I hope we will have a better competition day, but also, meet teams from around the world and have fun.”