Royal Oak's Championship Robotics Team Shows Off for School Board (w/video)

Months of effort paid off for a group of 20 students as they won a countywide robotics championship.

On Thursday, Chuck Gosdzinski, a teacher and leader of the ROHS robotics team, introduced Oakland County’s 2011 robotics champions to the Royal Oak School Board. The students did a demonstration and showed off trophies they picked up at an Oakland Schools awards banquet on Nov. 30.

The Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association (OCCRA) holds five tournaments a year, including the championship contest, which was held at Holly High School on Nov. 19. At the competitions, students operate 120-pound robogladiators on a field of play. This year’s challenge for robots was a game of tic-tac-toe.

Earlier in the year, at the high school.

“This competition is devoid of adults,” said Gosdzinski. “It takes about two or three months and (the students) put the whole thing together. They learned how to program during the season. Any time we needed to buy components such as sensors, things like that, the kids took care of it. Our goal for this competition is to let the kid rule it.”

“I absolutely love the robotics team,” said junior Leslie Seery, who has been a member for three years. “I think it’s one of the most important programs in the school. We have a fantastic team of 20 members and every single person is very valuable to us.”

The schools competing in OCCRA are responsible for building a robot within certain criteria — for example there is a limit to the number of motors you can use and there are certain weight, height, width and length restrictions. Another aspect of the competition is talking to the judges. Seery said you have to “schmooze” them a little bit.

“We like to teach all our team members really good social skills — learning how to talk to other people, how to communicate and really express and tell everybody what we did,” she said.

The robots like to play rough on the field of play. It’s very competitive. Seery said if you closed your eyes at a tournament you might think you were at a basketball game.

“People are these tournaments are so involved. They play music and everybody gets on the floor and everybody dances,” Seery said. “It’s so much fun. We yell and scream so loud, several members go home with lost voices.”

Final Results of the OCCRA Championship

Champions:  Royal Oak High School & Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast

Finalists:  Pontiac High School & Clawson High School

Semi Finalists:  Rochester Adams and Stoney Creek High Schools & Lamphere High School

Notre Dame Prep  & International Academy Central

#1 Seed Award:  Rochester Adams and Stoney Creek High Schools

Beautiful Bot Award:  Detroit Catholic Central

Spirit of the Competition:  South Lyon High Schools

Technical Excellence:  Royal Oak High School

Strategic Design:  Notre Dame Prep

Quality Award:  Rochester Adams and Stoney Creek High Schools

Simple solutions Award:  Brother Rice and Marian High Schools

Most Improved Award: Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast

Judges Award 1:  Roeper Upper School

Judges Award 2:  International Academy East

VEX Award:  Pontiac High School