By Kellah Lavoie

Getting ready for battle

Mar 19, 2011 | 11:38 AM

A group of Carlton Comprehensive High School students are heading to Saskatoon to fight robots.

The robotics club is in competing in the myRobot Rumble SUMObot Challenge at SIAST Kelsey Campus in Saskatoon on Thursday.

Rene Grimard, one of the team members, said putting the robots together was the easy part – it was the programming that took a while.

He said while construction only took half-a-day, the programing took more than a week. The Carlton team has three robots.

The rest of the team is comprised of Alex Carter, Colten Brass, Tyson Deranger and Graeme Pedersen. It is supervised by Jenna Welsh and Brad Amy

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Welsh said a couple of the robots came from SIAST last year for the competition and the other ones came from one of the teachers at Carlton.

The team has three robots that will be ready to go.

“There are going be two robots in our sumo wrestling thing – we’re going to put the robots in, they are going to face off and try and push each other out of the ring,” Grimard said, explaining the competition.

“It’s fun, kind of like what we are doing here (at school), just toss the robot in the ring and watch it go.”
Carter is also looking forward to the event. He said he had some coding issues with the robot he is working on, but thinks he has it fixed.

“It’s been a bother for the coding, but not so much for the putting together,” he said.

The competition is round-robin style, and the boys hope to do well.

“I going say I am going to get to the second round or something and just drop out there, because (the robot’s) not going to work,” Grimard said.

Carter is a little more optimistic.

“I am expecting some people to be more competitive and some to be there just to have fun, I am expecting just to have fun myself.

“With our problems, depending with how many teams, I am hoping sixth to seventh place. If we do better that’s great, if not hopefully next year’s (team), if they decide to join, they will improve.”

When asked why he joined the club to start with, Carter said it was the only option like it.

“I haven’t heard of many other programs around town that says you get to play with robots, build and program them and fight other robots.”

klavoie@panow.com