The Prairie High School Cloverbots robotics team has qualified for the world championship tournament in Houston, Texas, April 16-20.
The Cloverbots are the only team from Clark County to qualify this year.
It’s a moment senior Seth Hartrim-Lowe has been dreaming of. Hartrim-Lowe, programming lead, volunteered at the event last year and also gathered some intel on designs and programming to bring it back to the Cloverbots in order to build the best possible robot in a short amount of time.
“I’m the team’s driver, so I get to drive against the best in the world. So that will be fun,” Hartrim-Lowe said. “It’s the first time we’ve done it. It’s also my senior year, so it’s the cherry on top.”
The robot — fully designed, built and programmed by Prairie High School students — performs specific tasks in a competitive environment during tournaments. In order for the robot to reach this point, the students put in eight to 12 hours per week.
For teacher and adviser Todd Ferris, the momentous occasion of his team qualifying for Houston is a culmination of the students’ hard work and building skills.
“At the competition, there are a lot of companies and a lot of universities, and they go and they set up because, really, from their perspective, these are like the top high school people out there,” Ferris said. “I mean, they all want them because these guys built a robot in two months. Not many high school students can do that or can claim having done that.”
Oftentimes, Ferris explained that students who join the Cloverbots club at Prairie High School have no experience with hardware tools, let alone robotics.
“I really like to see how students come in not knowing anything. I mean, some of them have not used hand tools,” he said. “And through the process of designing and prototyping, building and repairing and testing, they come out knowing how to use the tools, how to do the design process, how to do CAD. They put a lot of work into it and it’s really fun to see it all pay off.”
Hartrim-Lowe has been trying to help the team go to worlds for the last three years, Ferris said. Last year, the team came close in the rankings. In order to earn an invite, the team must reach a combined point quota from three events in the school year. The Cloverbots placed first to start the year, earning a lot of points, and proceeded to do well in the next two events.
The Houston world championships take the top 600 teams out of roughly 4,000 worldwide, Ferris said. The Cloverbots rank 11th in the Pacific Northwest. For the world championship, they rank 153rd.
Desmond Sedaker won’t be able to make the trip to Texas, but will be watching from home as he will get to see his work in action on a global scale.
“My favorite part is the design at the very beginning, the prototyping and the strategy of what points to go for and how we’re going to go for it,” Sedaker said.
Cloverbots member Eric Carbajal-Vargas pointed out the work that goes into the club, and the opportunities to learn skills in a wide range of interests is a rare thing.
“Being a part of robotics is just being able to be a part of a team that does a variety of things,” he said. “We, of course, build and design a robot. We also machine our own parts. We also have photographers for events. We have web design and media to run our social media and our website. And having the variety of the team and being able to choose what to do on the team really makes the team great.”
Cloverbot team member Phillip Chernoval has enjoyed some of the problem solving factors of robotics and also the skills he has gained as a machinist making parts for their robot.
Ferris said the team is funded by sponsors and fundraising, with costs for the world championships trip reaching $17,000.
