Gearing Up

A quiet, collaborative energy fills room 105 in the Upper School North Science building. A large 3-D printer sits in the corner of the room, right next to a pair of brightly lit computers. Wooden prototypes of a robot’s claw pile up on one of the several tables. Gears and tools spill out of shelves. Enthusiasm abounds as students in Torch 5804, Collegiate School’s FIRST Robotics team, begin preparing for the competition season ahead. 

“These initial stages of developing our robot are really exciting,” Finian Richardson ’23 says. “It’s an iterative process. We see what works for a robot and we see what doesn’t. I think our team works really well through trial and error. That process of figuring out our robot is where the fun is.”

In the spring of 2022, Torch 5804 came in third place in the FIRST Robotics World Championship, a prestigious international competition, and brought home an award for creativity. This year, the team is hoping to build off that momentum. 

“After last year, we have a lot of interest in the program,” says Ava Kelleher ’25, who is beginning her second year on the team. “So far, it’s been a lot of fun to mentor and work with the younger students eager to learn about robotics. You can see them learning. I mean, for example, when I was in 8th Grade, I had no idea how to use an electric drill, and now I’m teaching Middle Schoolers how to use one.”

Beginning in early January, when the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) revealed the theme and rules for the 2023 international competition, Torch 5804 spends countless hours and weekends in the robotics lab as a team. They write code. They discuss competition strategy. They conduct data research for both their own robot and the machines of future competitors.   

This year, alliances will compete to collect cubes and cones and store them in particular areas of the arena. The robots are designed to move deftly about the large playing field, denying competing teams the ability to collect the game pieces while trying to scoop up pieces in their own robot’s electric maw. The robots take months to build, and students learn a number of engineering and leadership skills in the process. 

In the early stages of the robot’s construction, team members work on stress mapping to anticipate potential disastrous breaks during competitions. That might sound stark, but working through a robot’s flaws is a crucial component of its development. One of the most important functions of the robot is its ability to extend and contract its arm, allowing it to pick up and discard game pieces. The team is focusing on how to build that arm so it doesn’t collapse. “When we build, we’re thinking about issues that we wouldn’t want to happen in competition,” William Tidey ’23 says. “That something will break is almost a given, but thinking about how to solve those issues will help us.” 

Grayson Richmond ’17, a project engineer at Lockheed Martin Rotary & Mission Systems who competed with Torch 5804 during his time at Collegiate, now serves on the team as an advisor, offering his expertise and ideas. As an engineer working on F-16 aircrafts, Richmond helps guide the team’s structural design of the robot. “I try to help introduce various types of structural design engineering to students,” he says. “And, as an alumni, seeing the growth of the whole Torch program has been incredible. The technical understanding students have now is really advanced. Watching students that are strong coders collaborate with other students that are stronger with actually building the robot is something special.”

The mentor-based atmosphere allows students to further explore their science, engineering and technology skills, and with robotics competitions on the horizon, those skills will continue to be refined. “I think our whole team brings a lot of great ideas to the table,” Finian says. “We are really fortunate to have some great mentors this year. That’s kind of what the competition is all about: working together as a team to design a great robot.”