April 14, 2005 —
The Venice High School Botball team is a player, thanks in part to a Viterbi
School computer science graduate student.
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Donovan Artz: Reached out to Botdom. On screen, a botball bot. |
Donovan Artz, a Ph.D. candidate specializing in AI studying at the Information
Sciences Institute, volunteered as a coach/consultant after hearing a presentation
by Colleen Van Lent (wife of ICT gamemaker Mike Van Lent) at ISI, which touched
on the opportunity.
Van Lent is an assistant professor in the CS department at Cal State Long Beach,
who works with the organized botball effort. Her example inspired Artz to connect
with the high school nearest ISI's Marina del Rey location. There he found enthusiasm,
desire — but a need for skills he could provide.
Some 35 schools and organizations in Southern California not have Botball teams,
but the majority are in San Diego; Venice is onle of only six teams in Los Angeles
county.
Botball uses robots assembled from standard lego pieces. “The arms and drive
trains and complex components are all designed and built by the kids from very
basic building blocks— they really do build these things from scratch.” Artz said.
Typically, they are small wheeled carriages with long manipulator arms and simple
CPUs programmed in C. The game is played on a four-by-eight-foot game board where
robots score points by placing objects into scoring positions “
“The game board changes each year as does the scoring procedure. The game rules
and instructions for the game arena are revealed at the teachers' workshop. Botball
rules dictate that "the robot must turn itself on and off, perform its programmed
task, and utilize no assistance from humans or a remote control.”
Artz arrived at Venice before Christmas, met the Venice High faculty sponsor,
teacher Simon Huss (a former industry scientist with a Ph.D in physics who finds
teaching more rewarding) and found 30 students interested. It was not easy. “We
had trouble getting resources and space, even just finding a place where we could
meet. And for me explaining to the kids how to use stuff from my specialty to
help make their bots better—I have a lot to learn from Simon.”
“One of the big roadblocks the kids faced was to engineer a robot that would
fit in the starting space and then expand to move forward and knock down a ball.
The kids came up with a very impressive pulley system for raising and lowering
a large arm, and it was a really positive experience for them to make this idea
work -- many trials and errors before success.
“These kids showed lots of interest and dedication, staying until 11pm some nights
as the regional competition closed in -- some backing out of other obligations
to make robots a priority.
The 30 boiled down over time to a small hard core — who were ready March 19th
to do battle in San Diego at a tournament with 34 other teams.
In their first outing, Artz’s Botboliers (Venice High School's athletic teams
are the "Gondoliers) turned in a tie for sixth and seventh, and can’t wait for
next year. “Half the team will graduate,” said Artz, “but we have lots of recruits.”
The path was not easy. Money was a major factor; much of the funds came out of
the pocket of teachers. Robots and and equipment cost more the $2300, none of
which was available from the school. Travel to San Diego and other extras brought
the total to $3000, which the students raised by selling egg rolls and sodas,
and, remarkably, setting up a for-pay online dating service.
Artz, a graduate of Drexel University, is in his second year at ISI, working
with graduate advisor Yolanda Gil. Interested in contributing?
Email Donovan.
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Venice High Botbaliers: (from left) Graciela Cruz, Betty Liu, Bay Grabowski,
Leiguang Ren, Jeanette Tam, Wendy Tam |
