2026 Miami Valley Regional Robotics Competition

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:02]When a lot of people think of robotics tournaments, it's like kind of battlebotsy, but this is a lot different than that. A lot of what robotics is actually about is teaching people how to design stuff from the ground up. Kind of solve solutions on their own. Get a lot of hands-on work with mechanical, electrical, programming, but really all you're trying to do is just kind of have fun making robots.

[00:00:28]There's a lot that goes into preparing for a robotics competition. Uh we find out what the game is going to be uh the beginning of January, right when we get back from Christmas break. And we have from that point until we schedule our first competition to design, plan, build, program, and test our robot.

[00:00:46]So, this competition is a little bit different than years past. A lot of the other competitions, the max scores you really see are like 100, 150, and that would be a lot. for this competition.

[00:00:55]There's so many game pieces on the field. And these game pieces are just these 5.9 in diameter foam balls. And your entire goal is to take as many of them as you can inside of your robot.

[00:01:05]And then when the time comes, store as many as you can into your hub.

[00:01:12]The process of building is a lot of CAD.

[00:01:15]So we got a full CAD design of our robot. We use those CAD files to get a bunch of the robots CNCed. And then you basically assemble it and then it's a lot of iterations after you do the first design. You have to make sure that the robot does what it's supposed to do even when it's not connected to power.

[00:01:32]>> So what makes our program unique is that uh all of our robots that we build, whether they're competition robots or just our special one-off project robots, these are all 100% designed and built by students.

[00:01:46]>> This is our 2026 uh robot.

[00:01:50]Basically, this is our intake. It drops down and then we drive over. These wheels help pick up balls and they get fed through here. We have about 40 ball capacity. Next, it goes into our funnel.

[00:02:04]So, these are called mechanum wheels.

[00:02:06]So, they vector the balls into the center onto these kicker wheels and they'll kick it up.

[00:02:15]We have a full 360°ree turret so that no matter where our robot is rotated, we can shoot from anywhere in the field.

[00:02:21]We're using this camera right here which sees little QR codes called April tags on the field to tell us exactly where we are. And then since our drive base is, it's called Swerve Drive. Each of the wheels know exactly where they are at all times. We can actually estimate our exact position on the field using the odometry on these Swerve wheels and the limelight. and we decided to go with a fixed hood in order to just vary the speed of this flywheel to get different shots.

[00:02:49]It's really nice to be able to get something from the ground up that you've made yourself with your team and really work with other teams then to try and win the competition cuz you put a lot of work into it and you kind of want to see that work put into action.

[00:03:02]>> One of the things that I love most about Sanz is that it truly is a place for everybody and I feel that robotics plays a big part in our wide program offering.

[00:03:10]I've seen students walk in who have barely touched power tools, not knowing how to build a program or robot, and then I see them at the end of the school year, they can build a robot all by themselves. Everyone has their thing, whether you're a wrestler or a basketball player. That team is your is your friend group. It's who you hang out with after school. So, robotics, that's very much what I like to do. As well as building the robots, >> it's a lot of fun. You'll get to meet a bunch of people, and it's skills you'll have for the rest of your life.