Robots, robots and more robots! On Oct. 26, the high school robotics team hosted their annual HAVOC robotics competition run in the main and aux gyms. With 29 teams in attendance, the team had to set up, compete, run, and wrap up the competition together. 

HAVOC is a competition the high school robotics team, Hatters Robotics, came up with to fundraise. After the first year of success, the team decided to run the competition every year to make up for the cost of attending other competitions and the price of building the robot. 

The set up of the event took several months. Brian Sherman, professional mentor of Hatters robotics said, “We had to schedule the event with FIRST Mid-Atlantic, we coordinate with the other offseason hosts and pick a schedule. One of the challenges of this year was our original date didn’t work because of schedule conflicts. We were able to work with other schools to pick a date. We have to schedule with students, make sure everyone is available, we have to promote the event, set up the field, buy consumables, and do other [tasks] that would otherwise be handled by an outside organization.” 

Since the team has run the event for several years, they were able to gather the right number of people for the setup of the event, the day before the competition on Friday, Oct. 25. Dallas Hallston, sophomore and team member said, “The set up went smoothly and everyone was working together because we had enough volunteers for everything.”

Aside from setting up the competition, the team also competed the next day. Hatters Robotics was not satisfied with how they performed, with fewer people than at setup. Technical problems including a malfunction with connecting to proper wifi servers and the breaking of particular mechanisms led to some frustration throughout the competition. 

Josh Urbany, a senior on the team, said, “We had a lack of knowledge and lack of people there [on the day of competition].”

Hallston said, “There were a lot of problems with the robot, with the code and mechanics. People did not know things about the robot that they should have to be the driver and operating it. It would have gone a lot better if they had known that.”

One possible solution is training some of the younger students more. Hallston said, “A lot of sophomores and freshmen need to learn how things work. A lot of the older kids need to learn how to work with the younger kids. We need to have everybody know what they need to and communicate the information to be helpful in the future.”

Another solution is to give people specific jobs during setup. Urbany said, “We should definitely have people lead. For example, we should have a couple of people lead [putting down the masonite] after having an entire group explanation. Once we did that, it worked out well. We should do the same thing in season and set up for the competition [other annual competition in March that the team hosts].” 

Along with being an enjoyable event for its participants, HAVOC provides profit for the team. “What’s important to our team is fundraising. We have big costs every year. It’s a good fundraising event for us and helps pay for the costs throughout the year. It makes sense to continue year after year,” said Sherman. 

Compared to other competitions throughout the year, HAVOC is different. “HAVOC is a lot more relaxed. It’s a time that others have the opportunity to drive the robot, get the experience of that if they want to do it, we can see how good they are at it and see if they want to do it. It’s a practice run through. A big part of it is team building for setting up the event and breaking down the event,” said Urbany.

For robotics students, competing in HAVOC allows for them to get active and involved in their STEM community while connecting with friends. 

Picture Caption: (From left to right): Ryan O’Donnell, Dana Musselman, Josh Urbany, and Luke Zimmerman participate on the drive team for one of the matches during the competition.