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Strong arms to success

Aspen Ridge Middle School hosts robotics scrimmage

Hunter DeGormo, an eighth-grader at Aspen Ridge Middle School, and Anna Hytinen, a sixth-grader at the school, practice during a Saturday FIRST Tech Challenge scrimmage at the school. The host school fielded its first-ever team in the FIRST Tech Challenge program. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

ISHPEMING — Students at Aspen Ridge Middle School are getting strong-armed into learning about robotics, but in a good way.

The new FIRST Tech Challenge team from the school is named the Robotic Strong ARMS, with ARMS being the acronym for the school.

FIRST — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — is a Manchester, New Hampshire-based nonprofit that designs programs to motivate young people to pursue education and careers in the STEM-related fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Other area schools have been involved with the program for a while, but Aspen Ridge Middle School is new to the game.

Kristen Grondz, lead coach of the Robotic Strong ARMS, was on hand to oversee the team at a special event — a FIRST Tech scrimmage held at the school on Saturday that attracted teams from the Upper Peninsula, including the Robogators from North Star Academy.

Students from Upper Peninsula schools practice during the event. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

“As a rookie team, we are hosting the scrimmage,” Grondz said. “We are going in head-first.”

Teams also came from Houghton and Gladstone.

“They’re getting to practice with their robots to run, learn about different programming and building, and they’re here to experience what a qualifier competition is going to be like,” Grondz said of her team, with that qualifier to take place Nov. 30-Dec. 1 in Kingsford.

Saturday gave the students the chance to tweak their robots, get building ideas and understand the game they’re trying to play, she said.

During the early afternoon, the Robotic Strong ARMS members spent time in the practice field where they drove robots to become comfortable operating them.

Items such as balls, blocks, wheels and other moving parts helped build that comfort zone.

Rover Ruckus is this season’s FIRST Tech game.

“The theme is space, so our field is set up where we have a lander in the middle and then we have craters full of minerals,” Grondz said. “The objective of the game during their drive mode is they’re going to move as many minerals as they can, and either place them into the lander or into their depot.”

Throughout the game, team members accumulate points.

But if nothing else, they can imagine driving a lunar vehicle over the moon’s surface, collecting rare and precious minerals along the way.

Grondz said that depending on their scores in Kingsford, the team can advance to state competition.

However, the road to the state event comes with teamwork, troubleshooting and more than a little tinkering.

Aspen Brand, a sixth-grader at Aspen Ridge, enjoys the programming, but it goes beyond that.

“I like the building and stuff,” Aspen said. “I like the challenges that we have to figure out.”

Grondz said in an email after the event that she couldn’t be happier with how Saturday turned out.

“We started our day without a running robot, and by the end of the day we completed 10 matches in our play field,” she said. “All of the teams there today were very supportive of one another and very helpful. It was a great opportunity for the teams to gain experience for what a qualifier event will be like.

“Our team left the scrimmage today with knowledge and ideas of how to build upon what we currently have to make their robot perform and meet the goals of the tasks they want to accomplish.”

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