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Molokai robotics team headed to world championship in May

Students had to pass around robot, practice remotely due to pandemic

Mark Ragonton, a Molokai seventh grader, holds the team’s robot that will be competing at the 2021 VEX Robotics Remote World Championship in May. Photos courtesy of Edwin Mendija

Despite having to learn and construct a robot remotely amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of Molokai students persevered to qualify for the 2021 VEX Robotics Remote World Championship.

Eighth graders Maesilyn Yuen and Kalau’ihi Kaai and seventh graders Genesis Nakihei and Mark Ragonton spent the COVID-restricted season passing a robot back and forth between their homes, learning and building remotely with each other.

“I think things ran pretty smoothly, even if we were just talking online and not seeing each other for like three days,” Yuen said during a Zoom call last week. ” . . . That’s one of my favorite things about VEX, is meeting a bunch of different people and I also get to learn more things about STEM, which is always fun to do.”

With just four days notice, the team managed to complete their robot and make final adjustments before the state championship on April 11, where Team 1037X — Ragonton and Yuen — earned a score of 19 points in the programming portion and 65 points in the driving portion for a total of 84 points.

Team 1037Z, which includes Nakihei and Kaai, scored 19 points in programming and 59 points in driving for a total of 78 points.

Molokai Robotics teammates Maesilyn Yuen (clockwise, from top left), Mark Ragonton, Kalau‘ihi Kaai and Genesis Nakihei hold up celebratory signs during a Zoom meeting earlier this month after the Hawaii VCR Championship.

Together, they placed third and fourth in their respective division, with team 1037X qualifying for the virtual World Championship on May 17-19 along with hundreds of other teams worldwide.

“The competitions are like their science labs. They get to put the knowledge and skills they’ve gained to the test,” Molokai Robotics instructor Edwin Mendija said. “All the kids have different roles on the team.”

Yuen said that she and Ragonton practiced together and completed their programming just one day before the state championship and had to enter the competition with confidence.

“During practice time, I felt confident, but when it comes to the experience of the states, I get, like, my heart beating, sweaty hands,” Ragonton said with a laugh.

This will be the group’s first world championship experience at the middle-high school level — working with more complex metal robots rather than plastic.

“It was hard because it was all online but we pushed through and got to go to states,” said Nakihei. “I got to learn a lot of new ways to build the robot because I never knew how before this.”

While the students were still able to compete this past year, the lack of hands-on and in-person robotics lessons has been challenging for them.

Each year, the participating teams must design and engineer a robot from scratch that fits the criteria and can complete the “game of the season,” like stacking cubes or shooting a ball into a net, as well as other tasks and objectives, Mendija said.

Typically, team members gather together to brainstorm ideas and create a strategy at the start of the season. Then they’ll commence the planning and construction of the robot, as well as any necessary programming and driving practice to be ready for any skills tests, competitions and tournaments with other schools.

However, the team has only been able to meet via video chat this year, which meant that all lessons, robot construction and practice were held virtually in separate households.

Ragonton said that he had “a lot of problems” over the course of the year with building the robot and that there was no easy way to get quick feedback or an explanation.

“The whole Zoom thing, it was a little bit hard to keep them engaged,” Mendija added. “When you’re not hands-on, it’s a bit more difficult as far as showing them how to do things and being able to help them right away. That was one of the biggest challenges.”

Robot building also took longer than usual since the students had to split the workload, meaning that the robots themselves had to be safely transported between households.

“The robot transferring, it was different than how I’ve done it before, so it was a bit confusing, plus I’ve never used the type of robotics we used this year with the metal bots and the different parts,” Yuen said. “Especially not being in person and getting helped along the way, that was difficult, and also when we switched (the robot) back and forth and one of our partners, or myself, would make a mistake and one of us would have to fix it, so that was a little difficult too.”

The team started off with a virtual robotics coding competition, CoderZ League, which lasted from October through January.

The team was successful in the competition, moving through two qualifying rounds and placing in the quarterfinals of their region.

In February, the program was able to purchase multiple VEX Robotics kits with grants from Friends of Hawaii Robotics that were sent home with the students.

Because construction was taking longer than normal, the team was unable to compete in any events through the end of March, which initially meant Molokai Robotics was ineligible to compete in the state championship. Due to COVID-19 policy changes, they were allowed entry into the competition.

The game for the world competition consists of gaining points by having the robot remove or score as many balls as possible in a given timeframe.

“I think it was a pretty good design that we picked out this year,” Yuen said.

Kaai, who’s been doing robotics since the fifth grade, said his strategy is just to “stay calm” when he gets nervous.

“When I used to drive in public events, being in front of people didn’t make me that nervous, but there’s something about being livestreamed in front of a camera that kind of got me anxious,” Kaai said. “In the past, you would compete with an events team or you’re by yourself, which kind of lifted the weight off your shoulders, but now that it’s all solo, it puts a little bit more pressure on you.”

Due to COVID-19, most schools lost their robotics programs, which are run by teachers on volunteer time.

Molokai High School started the year off with around 16 kids, and the program eventually dwindled down to four.

“This year was important for us because, just keeping the ball rolling,” Mendija said. “I’ve been trying to create a nonprofit for the whole island and eventually we’re going to do that. For us, it’s just keeping the kids interested.”

Mendija said that they continue to adapt and push for competitions because “we can really highlight what these kids are capable of” and also so the kids can maintain some contact while distance learning.

“Due to COVID, I didn’t really have social time, and this is the time to like socialize with and communicate with teammates — there’s usually a lot of teammates and now there’s a lot less due to COVID,” Ragonton said. “I felt relieved that me and my partner got to go to worlds this year.”

Molokai Robotics was sponsored by Friends of Hawaii Robotics, Bayer Molokai, Maui Economic Development Board, Molokai Island Foundation and other donors.

Supporters include coach Desirae Mendija, Kodie Place and others who volunteered to help the team.

* Dakota Grossman can be reached at dgrossman@mauinews.com.

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