robotics – AHS NEWSPAPER

AHS Seaperch competes at regional contest

May 6, 2024

By Anya Gorovits
STAFF WRITER

Seaperch, an AHS club, sent their two teams to a regional competition in Cambridge on April 10th. The Jellyfish, one of the teams, won 5th place, while the other team, the Orcas, tied for 2nd. Unfortunately, neither team qualified for nationals this year.

Seaperch is a robotics competition where high school teams’ robots from around the world are put through complex obstacle courses and are judged on time and completion of difficult tasks. Students use PBC pipes, wires, and motors to create a remotely controlled vehicle. This may sound similar to many other robotics competitions, such as the AHS Robotics Club (ARC), but there’s a catch: the entire competition is underwater.

The team has always scored well and is “pretty exceptional”, according to AHS Seaperch’s founder and advisor, Daniel Donovan.

Seaperch competitions consist of two parts, an obstacle course and a challenge course. For the obstacle course, the robots must maneuver themselves through 5 hoops and back as fast as they can. The path totals around 20 feet. The challenge course, however, is much more complicated.

“This competition, the challenge is modeled after collecting samples using a remotely operated vehicle like a deep submersible,” said Donovan. He chose to start the club after receiving an email from a US Navy representative. The Seaperch program, run by Robo Nation, is entitled to promote students’ interest in marine design.

This year’s challenge course requires the robots to pick up rocks and sensors, open a door, and place the objects inside a small space. They earn points from different tasks and are given 10 minutes to gain as many points as possible. During the competition, students stand on the side of a pool and control their robots as they find their way through the water. There are two competitions each year. Teams first compete regionally, and if they qualify, they compete again at nationals.

Though Seaperch robotics may still sound similar to normal robotics, Seaperch robots don’t require any programming at all. According to Donovan, “Robotics is more complicated. These are simpler devices, but they’re working in a more complicated setting.” Though no programming is needed, students must learn about buoyancy, waterproofing, and how to operate underwater to create a successful robot. They learn a lot about the marine environment as well as engineering.

Most Seaperch members are also in robotics. Junior Canyu Li said Seaperch is “way less time-intensive, and way less material-intensive than normal robotics.” She explained that the more relaxed setting makes Seaperch a very fun club.

Senior Luke Stump describes Seaperch as a “mini robotics,” saying it leaves a lot of room for creativity.

AHS has had a Seaperch team for about 10 years and has placed 1st or 2nd at regionals and gone to nationals almost every year. Nationals typically take place at the University of Maryland. Last year, the team rented a van and drove down to compete. A couple of years ago, the team won 3rd place in the country.

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Andover’s Seaperch Team Heading for Internationals

May 23, 2022

Grace Wang
STAFF WRITER

From June 3rd to June 5th, the team will be heading to University of Maryland for the International Seaperch Competition.

COURTESY PHOTO / Stephen Sanborn
Photo of the Seaperch team taken by Stephen Sanborn after their victory at the Regionals

After an outstanding victory at the regional qualifiers hosted at the University of New Hampshire, the 8 members of AHS’ team Orcas; Alex Tong, Aadarsh Arasu, Sarah Zhang, Sasha Dicovistky, Raven Diaz, Vismay Ravikumar, Alex You, and Shashwat Ghevde, are preparing for internationals. “They won the whole thing. They won every category which qualified them for the National and International Seaperch challenge,” said Stephen Sanborn, the district’s science program adviser for grades 6-12.

The Seaperch Competition is a timed underwater robotics course where the robots need to complete a list of tasks successfully. Each year, the teams are given a kit and allowed to spend a certain amount of money to build their robots.

Furthermore, the competition is a two-part competition with an obstacle course and challenge course. Held in a swimming pool, the obstacle course is a series of hoops that the robot needs to go and come back through. Meanwhile, the second part is the challenge course which changes each year with different tasks done to obtain points. Ultimately, the teams with the most points rank higher.

The club, Seaperch, was founded a few years ago. Andover’s Orcas will be competing this year in hopes of bringing home first place. In the past, the club has been extremely successful. Arasu said, “Every year we’ve done this competition, the club has gone to nationals since they’ve been founded.” Unfortunately, the club last year didn’t participate in the competition because of COVID. However, back in full steam, the club is looking forward to crushing it on June 4.

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COVID-19’s Impact on Extracurriculars

February 28, 2022

Naomi Bloom
STAFF WRITER

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted many extracurricular activities throughout the year. However, due to the surge in cases after winter break, several extracurriculars have had to take extra precautions.

Since many families and friends gathered over winter break, COVID-19 cases spiked again, almost twice as many as the surge last winter. This is most likely due to the highly contagious Omicron variant. The rise in cases combined with the prior accommodations made for the pandemic forced many extracurriculars to do more to keep students safe.

The Athletic Director of the Andover Public Schools district, Bill Martin, spoke on the impact that the surge in cases had on the district’s sports teams and their fans. “We have had most of our teams affected by the number of athletes and coaches that have been out due to COVID,” he said. To ensure that their teams wouldn’t have to miss any competitions, a few games were postponed.

Additionally, the number of fans allowed at games has decreased. However, Martin said that he was hoping that by the end of the winter season, there will be fewer COVID cases and that the regular amount of fans will be able to return to the games.

In some instances, extracurricular activities have had to withdraw from their programs. For example, the AHS Model United Nations club is no longer attending this year’s Harvard Model United Nations (HMUN) conference. The conference was set to take place in person near the end of January, so the school’s delegates withdrew. Out of the thirty to fifty students at AHS that attend the HMUN meetings, fifteen delegates would have gone to the conference. Other delegates would have been coming from all around the world. Michael McCarthy, the teacher advisor for the program at AHS, said that he was worried about the possible spread of COVID there. “I had a lot of concerns about the delegates’ safety, so we withdrew our participation,” he said. “I was concerned that students would contract [COVID] and would be absent from school and would miss out… it’s a very large organization, and so with some kids out, they would miss out on a fun extracurricular opportunity.”

COURTESY PHOTO / Andover Robotics
What a normal in-person robotics meet in the AHS cafeteria looks like

The school’s robotics teams have also had to accommodate for the pandemic. Round one of the robotics tournament was going to be held in the AHS cafeteria in January, but because of the surge in cases, it was postponed. The competition in Canton was also postponed. “We’ll have ‘Practice Judging Days’ instead, which would be done remotely,” said Canyu Li, a freshman on team Thunder. Minda Reidy, the teacher advisor for the robotics program, said that was done “as a general cautionary.” She also noted that the schools of some other teams in the state were not allowed to travel, so several teams would have missed the meet. “We also put into consideration that we were asking a lot of people to be in tighter [quarters] than we should really with a big Omicron concern,” she added. Thankfully, though, the teams will still be able to take part in their Practice Judging Days and were able to host the tournament round in February.

In addition, the AHS math team was also impacted by the pandemic. While the school’s team was able to attend the meet that took place after winter break, some other teams were not able to. Dorothy Power, the teacher advisor for the team, was glad that the team could still make it to the competitions. “We were really fortunate that Mr. Darlington helped us find a way to travel beginning in January, and that all of our mathletes were healthy and could attend,” she said. These teachers and students are hoping that the pandemic will come to an end and their activities will be able to return to normal. “I’m hoping that this is the beginning of the end and that we can eventually—and probably soon—say goodbye to COVID in some way,” said McCarthy.

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Competition Warms Up Just in Time for Winter

January 13, 2022

Caitlin Connell

STAFF WRITER

The Andover Robotics Club (ARC) gears up for competition at qualifiers on January 15.

Bouncing back from COVID 19, Andover Robotics has been exceedingly successful coming into this school year. This year, club member Avanthika Suryadevara says Andover Robotics are “stronger than in the past.” After COVID, the club has grown as students have come back to in-person learning. This year, the club has the most members it has ever had, with a current total of 76 students. The club allows students as young as middle schoolers all the way up to seniors in high school to join. The club is a big commitment as it meets every Wednesday and Friday to continuously work on their robots.

Andover Robotics played in their first scrimmage on December 2 at Andover High School, getting their robots ready to start their season. On January 8 and 9, the AHS team will be hosting qualifiers for robotics teams from all over Massachusetts, but AHS themselves will not be participating in qualifiers till the 15. AHS, being fortunate enough to have the space and support of the school to give the surrounding teams a place to compete, will be hosting. AHS’s own teams will finally get to show off their skills shortly after on January 15.

**Club member Steven Zhang and team prepping their robot**

The three robotics teams at AHS consist of two co-ed teams, ARC Thunder and ARC Lightning, and one all-girls team, ARC Hailstorm. This year the club’s biggest competitions include Pioneer Robotics (Shrewsbury), Gearticks (Lincoln), and Brainstormers (Lexington); all teams will be competing against each other in the future.

Although a competition, Suryadevara explained that it is all “friendly competition” and the teams “admire what [the other teams] can do.” Club President Rashika Agarwal said, ”Gracious professionalism is how you are supposed to treat other teams, and even though it is a competition, you’re really there to make progress in STEM.” The goal for this year is to make it to states and then worlds, which one AHS team has done in the past.

In comparison, AHS has more teams than the other schools. Member Sasha Dicovitsky said, “Most schools that have robotics teams have either one or two and we are really lucky that we get to support each other during our meetings. If we have questions we have two other teams we can ask for help.”

The club strives to push each other and continue to challenge themselves in STEM. After coming back from break, they will be diving straight into deeper competition.

Editor’s note: due to a rise in COVID-19 cases both competition days mentioned here have been moved to a later date

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Robotics Club Ventures Into New Exciting 2020 Competition Season

March 12, 2021

By Madeline Shin

STAFF WRITER

STAFF PHOTO/ Erin Li
Teams Lightning and Thunder doing their last-minute adjustments and testing before the scrimmage. Left to right – Anderson Hsiao, Jeremy Liao, Alex You, Michael Peng, Alex Tong.

Competitions for the AHS Robotics Club have taken on a life of their own this year during the pandemic.

The club is made up of three teams, and they each build and program robots. These robots are made to perform at certain competitions, and the Robotics Club prepare their robots specifically for the FIRST Tech Challenge, or FTC. Team Lightning was expected to compete starting March 6, while team Hailstorm and Thunder are to start March 13. Unfortunately, the pandemic has caused the Robotics Club to go virtual and change the traditional formats of the FTC competition this year.

STAFF PHOTO/ Erin Li
Anderson Hsiao, a senior and co-team leader of team Thunder adjusting their robot before the scrimmage.

“Our competitions are now remote, which means that there is no such thing like piling on a bus and going to a different school,” said Abigail Chou, president of the Robotics Club. “We have to run our own matches.”

An important part of the FTC competitions were alliances, which required teams to partner up with another team by random selection. This pair would have to work together to score as many points as possible with their robots. Now, alliances are no longer part of the competition, so each team must use only one robot to score as many points as they can in a smaller playing field.

“Because of the pandemic, each team will be scoring themselves this year, meaning everything will be by the honors system,” said Helina Dicovitsky, a senior and leader of team Hailstorm. “We will still have to present our documentation to a panel of judges, but it will be over a Zoom meeting. Scores must be submitted in the designated time period in order to count.”

STAFF PHOTO/ Erin Li
Freshman Sasha Dicovitsky, right, and Lina Dicovitsky, left, working on the Hailstorm robot together. Lina Dicovitsky is also the team leader of Hailstorm which is the only all girls team in AHS.

The teams are judged on their documentation process, how they built their robot, their robot design, factors such as community outreach and their robot’s performance. The judges are volunteers who have expertise in science and engineering, and they will look over the documentation to see how it compares to other teams and score from there.

STAFF PHOTO/ Erin Li
Team Lightning’s robot designed for this year’s Ultimate Goal challenge running on the field before the scrimmage on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021.

Moreover, having meetings virtually has affected the progress of building the robot to every member in the Robotics Club.

Angela Ngo, a senior and the co-vice president of Robotics Club, told ANDOVERVIEW that “it’s better when it’s in person, so that way I can be there to test the code as well on the robot. It’s also better because you get to interact with other people and actually understand what they’re trying to show and do rather than just having to struggle to show people what you’re working on through a screen.”

STAFF PHOTO/ Erin Li
Freshman Jeremy Liao fixing Lightning’s robot while senior and team leader Michael Peng is testing it with a controller.

If one of the three teams of the Robotics Club gets through the FTC qualifying competition, they will make it into the Massachusetts State championships. After states, they may be able to proceed to one of the two world competitions in Texas or Michigan.