Caterpillar’s Future, in the Hands of High Schoolers

January 15, 2016

To drive our future in innovation, Caterpillar is taking an active role to combat the decline of college graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. One proven way we are building our STEM pipeline of future engineers and technical experts is through the support of FIRST® Robotics. 

Week 1: The Game, Concepts and Prototypes 

‘The Roboteers,’ a FIRST Robotics team from Tremont High School, located just 30 minutes from Caterpillar’s headquarters, waited anxiously with other teams from Central Illinois on Saturday, January 9 to hear about the engineering challenge that will dominate their after-school schedule for the next six weeks.

Each year, the FIRST Robotics Competition introduces a new ‘game’ for the international participants to tackle. This year, the 29 Caterpillar-supported high school teams will join more than 3,000 other teams around the world to compete in the medieval-themed game called ‘Stronghold.’ Teams are charged with the task of designing, building and programming a 120-pound robot that can (1) breach a variety of medieval defenses (including a replica moat, rampart, sally port, portcullis and cheval de friese), (2) weaken a tower by throwing boulders (foam balls) into the targets, and (3) ultimately capture their opponents’ tower. The students’ robots must conquer these challenges in an action-packed 2 minute and 30 second match while competing in three-robot alliances. An added twist to the game this year includes audience participation as they chose one of the defenses that all teams will have to navigate.

Following the game reveal Saturday morning, Roboteer students and mentors wasted no time and quickly immersed themselves in the game manual and all of its rules, pouring over details from how the game must be played to allowable robot construction and features. Later that weekend, the team met to discuss the game and brainstorm possible strategies for the competition. Tremont High School senior and Caterpillar intern for the Customer Service Support Division, Tom Landry, observed that “this year’s challenge looks like the hardest one yet!”

In these initial concept stages, the team’s discussions have been focused on the problems to solve – breaking down the physical dimensions, the materials, their location on the field and in relationship to each other – and then what capabilities are needed for the robot to compete in the complex game. To gain a better understanding of the terrain, the team also simulated match play by laying out the field in the high school gym. Some students became robots and others became obstacles to simulate the various match sequences, allowing the team to better understand the time and space constraints.   

Working with their engineering mentors from Caterpillar, student sub-teams began to brainstorm the various drive trains, game acquisition mechanisms, launchers or shooters, and defense breaching devices that might be needed and presented their concepts to each other. By the end of week one, The Roboteers expect to have their prototypes designed and mock field elements constructed in order to test their concepts quickly.

About The Roboteers

The Tremont High School Roboteers are competing in their ninth season of FIRST Robotics. The team has 28 students this year and more than one-third are girls. The Roboteers are mentored by six Caterpillar engineers and several adult mentors from other firms. Following the build season, they plan to compete locally at the Caterpillar-sponsored Central Illinois Regional hosted at Bradley University on March 16-19 as well as the Smoky Mountain Regional in Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 31 - April 2. Like all of their peers around the globe, the ultimate goal of the team is to earn the right to compete at FIRST Robotics World Championship in St Louis, Missouri, on April 27-30.