Alpha+ preps for regionals

BONNERS FERRY — First Team Alpha+, Bonners Ferry High School robotics team, is preparing for the upcoming regional competition in Nampa on March 29.

The competition will feature 48 teams from across Idaho, California, Wyoming, Utah, a team from Canada’s British Columbia and two teams from China.

Every year, robotic teams compete in robot building and are presented with a different game for robots to compete. The teams then dive into designing and building the best robots to complete the tasks in the game.

In the past, the robots have had to shoot balls into hoops and then finish by climbing and hanging from monkey bars.

This year’s game has added a new element — picking up cones, putting cubes on a shelf and balancing the robot on a teeter totter platform.

BFHS team members said they are perfecting their game plan on how to navigate each portion of the game and how to get the extra points.

“The tricky part is getting three robots on the platform for extra points,” senior Thomas Hubbell said.

“This year is all about repeatable actions,” Brody Becker, robotics team member, said. “This year, the robots need to pick up two things and balance.”

Alpha+ has run several tests and models on software to test and feel confident they will be able to rise to the challenge, Hubbell said.

“The last three years, there has been a challenge to lift the robot off the ground, but not this year,” Hubbell said. “Also before we always had to pick up a ball, which is less difficult than picking up a cone.”

The competition designers switch up on the teams, making one thing simpler and another more difficult, he said.

This year’s team had four returning seniors and additional students from the freshmen class and eighth graders.

Team members said with the addition of eighth graders this year and robotic veterans returning in the next few years, that robotics has a bright future.

Last year the team finished in the quarter finals. They are excited to compete again.

If the team qualifies at regionals they would go on to compete at the world competition.

The robotics team raises all their own funds. It costs approximately $40,000 to compete every year with costs for software, equipment and entry fees costing $6,000 per competition.