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Vikebot takes PR students to new heights
Published 12:57pm Monday, December 10, 2007The newest addition to Pelican Rapids High School isn’t a person or a place — it’s, well, a thing. And now, after months in the making, a robot named Vikebot is gaining its student creators national recognition.
Back in late summer, Brian Stuvland, an industrial technology teacher at the school, applied for participation in a competition sponsored by BEST Robotics Inc. Aimed at boosting engineering, science and technology, BEST has local hubs all over the country, where area students use a specific set of materials to design, build and test radio controlled robots in six weeks time. Teams compete with their robots locally, with the top groups advancing to regional competitions.
Only days before the program’s September kick-off, Stuvland received word that Pelican Rapids had been selected to participate. Initially an alternate, Pelican Rapids was chosen to fill the spot vacated by North Dakota’s Northwood Public School, which was devastated by a tornado in August. Northwood had played a major role in bringing BEST to the North Dakota State University College of Engineering and Architecture, the area’s local hub.
“Right away I had Jim come in and talk about the whole event,” said Stuvland, referring to Jim Lund, owner of Lund Machine in Pelican Rapids and a long-time helper with industrial technology projects.
Lund agreed to sign on as a mentor and Stuvland set to work finding students to participate. While some of the first work was done by students in Stuvland’s “Principles of Technology” class, the bulk of the project was completed by 11 students after school and on weekends.
This year’s BEST competitors were directed to build a machine that could withstand life on Mars. According to the storyline “2021: A Robot Odyssey,” construction robots were needed on the planet in preparation for the arrival of astronauts. The job required robots to trek across a harsh surface, unload supplies (bottles known as “fuel cells”) and load them in a storage bin — in less than three minutes.
BEST rules also specified the finished product weigh no more than 24 pounds, fit within a 24-inch cube and be created only from the materials supplied by the local hub.
“That’s what I thought was really cool about this competition,” Lund said. “All the teams used the same materials.”
Features of Vikebot include wooden wheels laced with strips of an inner tube (for traction) and an end effector arm using bungee cords to lift fuel cells.
As the fall progressed, students continued to improve upon Vikebot’s design.
“It changed a lot — they made it faster,” Stuvland said. “A lot of it was practice. We put the stopwatch on every student.”
While some students worked on the robot, others created a presentation and table top display about Vikebot, in addition to keeping an engineering notebook detailing the project’s evolution.
By mid-October, the team was ready to compete against other Minnesota and North Dakota groups in an event hosted by NDSU. Teams were judged on each piece of the project: the presentation, the table top display, the notebook and the performance of the robot. In the last category, small round-robin robot match-ups determined which team’s machine could pick up, transport and drop off the most fuel cells in the least amount of time. By placing in the top four groups, the Pelican Rapids team advanced to the regional competition at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith, held the weekend of Nov. 30.
To get there, students relied on assistance from members of the Pelican Rapids community, who pitched in to help cover the $4,700 cost of the trip.
“Since we live in such a small community, people know what’s going on at the school,” said Dustin Ramage, a student on the team.
“The whole town and the school has been crazy about it,” Stuvland said. “A lot of these businesses contacted us and said ‘I’d like to donate’ and sent us a check.”
The Pelican Rapids team returned from Arkansas early last week, placing first in the “Most Robust” category, second in “Most Photogenic” and eighth overall out of 34 teams from around the country.
Members like Ramage said the BEST experience offered a nice alternative to existing school activities like sports. Work on Vikebot, team leaders said, brought out new skills in students.
“We had a couple of kids that stepped up and took a leadership role,” Lund said.
More information about BEST is available by visiting www.bestinc.org/MVC
