Record number of students compete in Robotics Competition

2 days. 17 robots. 37 middle school students. 

That’s a record for this year's BHSU Underground Robotics Competition at Sanford Underground Research Facility (Sanford Lab). The competition encourages middle school students to explore STEM subjects by building and programming robots that traverse an underground course on the 4850 Level. In its fourth year, the competition hit record numbers after adding two more schools to its program. With more students, the program also expanded to include two days of competition. 

“During the first three years, we were working out the bugs of the course, logistics and judging. This year, we felt that we were ready to expand the competition, and we were eager to involve more students by doubling the middle schools invited to attend,” said Brianna Mount, director of the competition.

This year’s program expanded to include Southwest Middle School in Rapid City and Lead-Deadwood Middle School, in addition to Spearfish Middle School and Belle Fourche Middle School, which have participated previously. Robert Dahlenburg, science teacher at Southwest, said the competition provided great practice for the students to develop skills as engineers and programmers. 

“The program allowed us to form small teams of one to two students, which meant they were able to spend more time working on the robot and programming, and really focusing on the tasks,” said Dahlenburg, who was involved in the competition as a BHSU mentor in previous years.

For the competition, teams of middle school students are paired with college mentors from BHSU, who meet with students regularly to help with design and programming. On competition day, mentors take the robots to the 4850 Level while their middle school students watch from the surface and advise via videoconference.  

The students were enthusiastic about their designs and gave careful instructions to their mentors before handing off the robots at the ramp near the cage. Teams gained points if their robot successfully completed tasks such as picking up and delivering payloads or included sensors and gears in its design. 

Logan McMakhem, a seventh-grade student at Southwest, proudly described her team’s robot, named Robit. “It has an adjustable arm that moves forward to pick objects up on the course,” McMakhem said, “and we added a color sensor on the bottom to help it follow lines.”

Robit performed well, but at the end of the competition, it was a robot designed and programmed by Connor Curran and Caden Thomsen, both eight-grade students at Belle Fourche Middle School, that took first place. Curran and Thomsen have been team members for the Underground Robotics Competition for three consecutive years. Their experience contributed to the impressive design of their robot, named “Phil Swift." 

“In past years, we’ve used a ball here, but it got stuck on the ramp, so we switched to a track wheel,” Curran explained.

“We installed a medium motor here that allows us to pick up the molecule. There are two large motors on the tires and a track motor on the back for low friction so it can turn easier,” said Thomsen.

Both students said they are interested in pursuing careers in software engineering or computer programming. 

“The students design and build creative solutions to various problems,” said Dahlenburg. “Some of the solutions are so elegant that I almost can’t believe that it came from a middle school student.”

“In the future, we hope to continue this opportunity for local students to learn about the science of Sanford Lab and robotics,” said Mount. “Overall, our goal is to keep them engaged in science and engineering.”

For more information about the Underground Robotics Competition, contact Brianna Mount at Brianna.Mount@bhsu.edu.