We started our VEX journey with about 2 months until the competition. The competition we did not know existed until about 2 weeks before its date. How fun.
The bot designs (VEX designs suck)
When we originally built our robot, we built a claw bot. The claw bot had a grabber to help grab balls and move them around. These claw bots could also climb. They still weren’t great. It was janky and struggled to grab the tri-balls but could grab MUG Root Beer bottles. It became unbalanced whenever its arm was out. So… not good.
We then immediately disassembled it because Klins found a “better” design. This is a striker/hero bot design. This design was also kinda sucky. Especially in the building half. It had so many horrible screw placements and spacers without room or the blueprints telling you to place screws in sideways! Yeah no, that sucked. Repairs were also not easy. You would have to remove bits to get to buried screws and such. A positive thing is it protected the brain well! But also, the brain wasn’t easily accessible was a pain to turn on and such things. So note to future builders/designers, make sure you can get to your brain easily.
Stephan also had a major MAJOR issue. His axels would constantly warp/twist/sheer. If you moved his arm a little too rough, he would bend/twist his axel, causing it to not move. This was an error that Zeph and Arlo had to fix in the middle of the competition without a replacement. We had to switch that axel with the paddle axel. This was a very rushed job and we finished it on the queue table. It sucked.
The arena
We had the arena before we had the robot. So we got to mess around with that first. Zeph, Arlo, William, and Zach did this. Not to insult our other teammates, they didn’t join us yet. This arena did not stay up for long and was hidden away in a not easily accessible closet.
After Stephan was complete, we started putting the arena together again in Art and Design’s old classroom. This is in the skill center. Right after we finished building this, we were transferred to the main building. Meaning anytime we wanted to work on the coding, we had to walk over. This was a pain. We did have Ryan Reynolds as company. We all miss him dearly.
About Stephan
Stephan (Ste-ff-on) Degorski (D-GORE-SKI) 2.0 is a striker bot named after the North East Highschool marching band director. After Mr. Stephan DeGrosky learned about how the first thing our (unnamed) robot picked up was a MUG Root Beer, he exclaimed “I can do that!” and that is how Stephan was named.
Stephan has 2 divorced fathers, Zeph and Arlo, and an aunt and uncle, Frankie and Walker. Stephan was built after Arlo and Zeph’s divorce. Why do people think we are dating?
The day before the competition, Zeph got to take Stephan home. We got to introduce him to our homeschool teachers, but sadly not Stephan Degrosky. This robot is either stupidly heavy or Zeph is weak. Probably both.
Stephan’s Tantrums
The first sign of Stephan throwing tantrums was while Arlo was coding its autonomous time and threw a tri-ball at him when he was standing in front of it.
The infamous twisting that has confused all who have heard the tale. Arlo had to step out of the room and left Zeph in charge of driving him, oh what a horrible mistake. Like any father, Zeph encouraged Stephan to climb. Another horrible mistake. Arlo returned to the room to see Zeph huddled around their son who had a broken arm (axel). Zeph is banned from driving and Stephan is banned from climbing. Here is a photo of Stephan’s broken arm:
This is more a meltdown than a tantrum. During a match against our rival PM team where Liam (the driver) repeatedly slammed their robot into Stephan. This not only damaged his arm AGAIN, but also his wheel axel started burning/sheering. He could only spin in circles for the rest of the match. Thanks, liam. “You don’t deserve proper noun status” -Arlo. This caused a total rush to fix and lots of panic. This lovely photo from Klins is not a fun moment of joyous work. This is a moment of absolute terror. Thank you, Jason Klins, for capturing this moment. Zeph is so glad his face is hidden in this photo. Having a photo of that fear would’ve sucked. “Sucked is my favorite word” -Zeph.
His final tantrum before DEATH was not stopping his paddles and frying port 8. We had to fully turn off the remote to get him to stop. Even the judges were confused. We still have no idea how or why this happened.
The Squad
(Shown below, left to right) Builder: Zephyrus Burek. Coder: Arlo Russel. Driver: Walker Owens. Designer: Frankie Trigilio
Zeph started off by building. Arlo started off fixing Zeph’s mistakes and doing his job while Zeph was crying due to unrelated issues. Building the robots was a lot of fun. The instructions are rather messy though. Multiple steps just to say how to put a nut on a screw. No steps telling you how to properly get things to fit. Multiple errors and having to redo sections because of total incompetence on Zeph’s behalf. (Zeph wrote this bit). Future advice: Pay extra attention to this, especially if you are stupid and can’t count. Zeph also did basic “how does this work code” while Arlo was off adventuring and living out a pirate fantasy. (Aka a cruise)
Then Arlo took over. Honestly the amount of trial and error was insane, but good job! So proud. Coding Stephan also sucked for the most part. Any change to his speed or turn angle meant that I had redownload the code and reset him in the exact same spot as before. We eventually made him a parking spot with tape because we kept putting him too close to the wall or turned too far. The coding on its own was okay though, just simple block coding. You need him to turn? There’s a block for that. Need him to spin his paddles? There’s a block to spin the motor however far you need it to go. There were options for other coding styles like python and C++, but seeing as I don’t know how to use those, we stuck with pure block coding. I would’ve liked to look at how the line code was worded, but there was a warning saying I wouldn’t be able to switch back to the blocks if I did.
Walker then was driving. He had his license, Zeph was banned, Arlo didn’t want to due to anxiety, Frankie also did not want to. This worked out rather well. Walker was a good driver and ready to adapt to anything. Good for him!
Frankie mostly helped with giving advice and explaining things due to her experience at Harborcreek.
Also, shoutout to Mr. Hart for making sure no hands were thrown (cough Zeph cough). You were a valuable member of our team.
Learn from our mistakes!
- Do not strip the standoffs. (ZEPH)
- Remember to download your code before running it (ARLO)
- Hand sanitizer somewhat works as a lubericant
- Understand the competition better so you don’t rush to add extra code at the beginning of a competition
- Dress well so you get a chance to be part of the elimination round because a girl thinks you look nice (true story -Zeph)
