Michael Wynne had never pictured a future in robotics when he began to contemplate where he would go to high school.
An IB student, he had few options available for his preferred route of education and when a friend suggested he join a robotics program that only left one school in a local vicinity that could meet all of his interests. He enrolled at King High School and began to make the trek from Plant City to Tampa five days a week to pursue his new passion.
“What’s great about our robotics team is most people go in without any information on how to do stuff,” Wynne said. “We all have assigned things to do and as a team we compete with our robot. I’ve learned how to use the drill press and have picked up a variety of skills with tools. There’s 15 students and three mentors, two of the mentors are college students… The students pretty much teach ourselves, we’re building from scratch and programing ourselves and we kind of teach each other how to succeed.”
Each year the team, which is called Torque, is given a new objective with a detailed description of the agenda the robot will have to complete. They then have six weeks to build the bot and program it so it can perfectly complete the new course. During build season the students work more than 10 hours a week, filing time on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday to perfect their ‘bots.
Wynne said he knew “basically nothing” going into the program and yet was hooked almost immediately upon starting his freshman year. He’s a sophomore now and has fallen even more in love with the unique challenges that come from competing on the robotics team.
“I was surprised by how little time we have to build it,” Wynne said. “I’ve assumed it would take much longer to do it, but when we’re working as a team nonstop it’s really impressive how much we get done in that time. I work on the bumper, but we have the mindset that if any of us finish our part we go and help somewhere else. We learn so much that way and we’re able to really build a lot in a short period of time.”
Once build season wraps up the teams are thrown into heavy competition. Each event is approximately three days long and whichever teams win continue to advance day by day. But unlike so many local competitions, these students aren’t just up against teams from Tampa Bay, Florida or even the entire United States. The competitions are international and there are designated districts that teams can travel to compete in.
Due to the wide range of talents each competition has monumental odds. Just a few weeks ago Torque was up against more than 60 other teams and the upcoming competition has around 65 teams confirmed to compete.
“There’s a lot of competition, but we try not to let that get to us,” Wynne said. “The hardest part of this entire process is pretty much at competition when we’re having to fix problems that emerge. With the strict time limits you have a lot to do in a little amount of time.”
Sometimes their drive chain stops working midway through an obstacle course. Sometimes there seems to be a glitch between the messages the driver is sending and the machine. Regardless of what pops up the team has to immediately fix the problem so the robot can continue the competition.
For a school like King, obstacles come in an entirely different form as well. Sponsors and funding continue to be a hurdle for the group and Wynne said when these massive international teams arrive they’re coming with sponsors like Disney or NASA and “every tech company you can imagine.” Because of the financial backing the programs are much larger than King can provide with teams sometimes double the size of the Tampa school.
The students are also relying almost entirely on their self-taught knowledge to carry them through the competition. The three mentors are a massive help, however, the students aren’t receiving the guidance of industry experts like many of the other teams do during build season.
“We’d love to have someone come in and work with us during build season,” Wynne said. “We’re still a relatively new team and we’re going up against teams that are a lot older than us. They have knowledge we don’t. It would be cool if someone with engineering or mechanics or really any helpful experience could come and talk to us.”
Though the obstacles are many, the team continues to hold its own at competition. They’ve become a family at Torque and the camaraderie makes learning the niche skills all the more enjoyable.
“There’s this stereotype that you have to have a lot of knowledge and you have to want to go into robotics to join the team, but that’s just not true,” Wynne said. “You learn so much here and it’s open to everybody. We teach you, you don’t have to know much and I promise you’ll have fun.”
Anyone interested in partnering with Torque for sponsorship or mentoring should visit torquerobotics.com. You can also call Loraine Christensen at 813-744-8333 x248 with any questions.