Robot Battles – The Future of Manufacturing

On Friday and Saturday, May 15-16, sixty-four teams, comprised mostly of high school students, met to compete in the National Robotics League (NRL) national tournament. For these students, it was the culmination of 8 months of hard work and dedication. For the manufacturing industry, it was a glimpse into our future. And I must say, the future is looking quite bright.

The program has teams of students building and programming a robot that will battle against other robots. For many teams, the competition is an actual class at their schools. The students focus on design and engineering, but also engage in project management as they plan and track their progress.

More Than Just Robot Battles

In addition to the battle, the competition also includes portions for:

• Presentation and interview
• Documentation
• Engineering

I had the pleasure of serving as a judge for the presentation/interview and documentation portions of the competition and I came away quite impressed with the caliber of work these students presented. Most of the teams were quite articulate and documentation was fairly thorough and well organized. It was very easy to determine which teams were well-coached and had rehearsed their presentations. And while some of the students seemed at ease in this situation, the day left me with the realization that we, as parents, coaches and mentors, need to do more to help our students learn proper etiquette and polite ways of simply greeting people and learning how to command the room while presenting. Some of the students seemed to have difficulty maintaining eye contact, many were simply not dressed to impress, a few launched into their presentations without even introducing themselves. These observations are not noted to take anything away from the hard work these kids did, rather it’s cautionary for us. The realization that we can do more to prepare students to excel, simply by teaching them that a proper handshake and eye contact can help set the stage for success, was eye-opening.

Pathway to Filling the Skilled Labor Pipeline

As part of the interview process, I asked each participant, many of them high school seniors, what they would be doing next year. As expected, many were headed to a 4-year university and many had chosen mechanical or electrical engineering as their field of study (with a few civil engineers thrown in). What most piqued my interest however, were the few that stated they were actually headed directly into the manufacturing industry. A few already had full-time jobs lined up, one to begin even before graduation. A couple of apprenticeship pursuits, two planning to earn their journeyman’s certificates and one stated he was going to be a tool and die maker – most high school students don’t even know that occupation exists!

This program, and others like it, obviously inform and educate students about the opportunities manufacturing presents. It creates awareness of the possibilities, engages students and their parents to the point that they want to learn more, and improves the perception of what manufacturing is and offers. The more students that become involved in this type of program, the more likely we are to keep our pipeline of skilled labor filled.

The Fun Stuff

Let’s be honest, one of the reasons some of these students get involved in the program, is they want to build a robot and let it beat the living heck out of another robot. Pretty cool stuff. And I’ll admit, during the competition every time a robot sailed through the air, or sparks flew, I just had to watch. And as I watched the robots and talked to the students, I realized that while the sheer coolness of fighting robots got these students interested, they learned a great deal during their process…about themselves, about our industry and about their futures.

Congratulations to Plum High School (Plum, PA) and their robot Knockout, for winning the robot battle competition.

Congratulations to the Ponitz Career Technology Center (Dayton, OH) team on being Grand Champion of the NRL national competition. Their robot was second runner-up, but their scores for presentation, documentation and engineering propelled them to the top spot, overall.

Video of some of the robot battles can be seen here. Yep! Pretty cool. And if you think it’s cool too, contact the NRL to find out how you can help a local program and get involved in making a difference for students and our industry.

Julie Murphy is Director of Marketing, Okuma America Corporation.