Botball 2005

Hampton High School

A Brief History

For the past several years Hampton High School has sent teams to the annual Botball competition. With the retirement of Don Allaman, longtime supervisor of the technology club, Vince Kuzniewski enters his first year of sponsorship. He inherits a team that advanced to the national level last year and was successful with a robot assembled in the eleventh hour named "Plan B" the year before. With a lot of hard work, dedication, and knowledge of robotics, the team hopes to build on last year's success.

Teamwork Works

This year, the large team is split up into three groups. Rather than have every member work on the entire project, it was decided to split up based on individual specialties. The following teams have been formed:

Programming (headed by Justin Burdett and Garrett Balint)--writes instruction for the robots

Engineering (headed by Steve Ung and Andy Wilson)--builds and designs the robots

Documentation (headed by Scott Baret)--writes online documentation, keeps track of what happens at meetings, in charge of this website, takes pictures and movies

2005 Design

This year we have elected to go with two robots.

This is our main attack robot. Don't be fooled by the Game Boy Advance--we're not slacking off and playing Super Mario! Rather, this is a powerful new way to control our robots. In this picture, junior Andy Wilson is working on a program to control the actions of this machine. This is our primary offensive robot.

Powered by the old reliable Handyboard, the second robot will serve as an assistant and a blocker. This picture shows some early construction by an unidentified team member. The final version of this robot will have a large arm attached to it.

Here is a shot of our first robot in action. This grip is tighter than that old man in church who always gives you the "handshake of death", so we're confident that it will serve us well!

(note that Quick Time is needed to view this; you may download it from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/)

Our Hard Work

A team meeting was held weekly during April and May for us to work on our assignments. Even with conflicts such as sports, band, and AP testing, our members proved dedicated enough to make an effort to attend as often as possible. In some cases we called additional meetings on other days of the week.

As you can see, we have chosen to base our designs off functionality over creativity. Our robots are not meant to be beautiful like an iMac, yet they do their job and they do it well. The engineering of these robots required the sharpest of minds, and we were fortunate enough to have many smart young men working on them. Juniors Andy Wilson and Steve Ung, the leaders of the engineering team, have both participated in Botball for the past two years and have produced good results.

The programming aspect also proved to be challenging. With many students who have taken C++, Java, and AP Computers, finding talented programmers was not a problem. As anyone who has tried their hand at programming knows, it requires time, patience, and a sharp mind. Our team members had all three of those qualifications. Senior Justin Burdett and sophomore Garrett Balint head this department, and managed to recruit a few new members toward the tail end of the design phase to help out.

Even though his job as a journalist does not require engineering or programming skills, senior Scott Baret single-handedly embraced the role of note-taker, website designer, and photographer. No stranger to the world of technical writing--he wrote a simple book on Macintosh computers when he was in first grade--Scott has been in charge of all of the documentation entries on the Botball website.

Senior Spotlight

Two of our members will graduate in a few weeks.

JUSTIN BURDETT is the president of the technology club and co-captain of the Frisbee team. In addition, he plays trumpet in the high school band and has excelled in many AP courses. A longtime computer user, he will be attending Penn State University to major in Information Sciences and Technology.

SCOTT BARET has used computers since 1989, done technical support since 1992, and worked with Hampton's IT department since 2003. An avid Pittsburgh Pirates fan, he will be attending college to pursue a career in education.

Hampton Technology Club Information

Our club meets weekly on Mondays after school. In addition to Botball, past activities have included hosting a robotics camp for middle school students and teaching a computer class for senior citizens. All club members would like to thank the administration at Hampton High School for their assistance.

Supervisor: Mr. Vince Kuzniewski

President: Justin Burdett

Vice President: Andy Wilson

Secretary: Garrett Balint

Treasurer: Steve Ung