Von Steuben robotics team headed to the nationals, if they can afford it

Physics teacher Manny Aldana expected this to be a rebuilding year for the robotics team at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center.

The club, which formed four years ago, graduated the last of its veteran upperclassmen in June 2017, leaving an untested group of freshmen and sophomores heading into the 2017-18 season.

Participating in the Vex Robotics league — which is not Battle Bots, Aldana stressed, but a task-based challenge series — Von Steuben kicked off its competitive schedule in October. The squad’s three teams, like their league counterparts across the country, have been charged with designing and building bots capable of stacking mini traffic cones and transporting the load around an obstacle course to a designated goal.

Von Steuben’s first tournament came just five weeks into the CPS school year, and the students’ inexperience showed.

“Other [suburban] teams’ school years start earlier — they’re already practicing and we’re just forming teams,” said Aldana, 27, the team’s faculty adviser. “The team wasn’t ready.”

Sophia Villacarlos, 16, a member of one of Von Steuben’s three bot-building teams, conceded, “Our first robot was inefficient and too slow.”

The teens proved quick studies.

In November, Villacarlos and teammates Safa Azad, 16, Karen Moy, 15, and Hikari Nakasone, 14, nabbed a victory with their bot at a competition in Wisconsin. The win was more than just a confidence booster, it qualified the foursome for a slot at the U.S. Open Robotics Championship.

“I’m shocked myself, to be perfectly honest,” said Aldana, a Von Steuben alum.

Villacarlos, who’s been building things since she was old enough to hold a Lego, said she’d wanted to join robotics last year but “I thought low of myself — I thought I couldn’t do it.”

Now she’s the captain of the team headed to Council Bluffs, Iowa, in April for nationals.

Competing at nationals will represent a huge leap forward for Von Steuben, 5039 N. Kimball Ave., which only introduced engineering to its curriculum in the 2012-13 school year.

“I’m really proud of the girls. I’m especially proud of our expanding footprint in STEM [science, technology, engineering and math],” said Laura LeMone, Von Steuben principal.

Robotics, taught as part of a broader engineering class, piqued students’ interest and an after-school club was formed, Aldana explained.

“The kids have an intrinsic motivation to come here. It’s not part of their grade, it’s not part of a class,” he said. “It gives them a sense of ‘I’m not just following directions, I’m not just doing what I’m told.’ They have to think for their own solutions.”

“When you get it wrong, you keep trying,” Moy said of robotics’ appeal.

The team’s after-school sessions have been known to run as late as 8 p.m. “I look forward to it every time,” Villacarlos said.

To prepare for nationals, the team will compete in a pair of tune-up tournaments at the end of January, having broken down their bot and started over from scratch.

“We’re trying to make it better all the time,” Villacarlos said. “We want to test to see if it’s worthy going into Iowa, where there will be bigger, badder bots.”

Though it’s a bit of a long shot, Von Steuben’s two other teams could also qualify for nationals with wins at either of the upcoming competitions.

The prospect of taking his entire squad to Iowa may be thrilling for Aldana, but it also keeps him awake at night wondering how to pay for it all.

Registration for a single team at nationals is $495, a sum Aldana was only just able to raise. Then there’s a van to rent, hotels to pay for and, ideally, new parts for the bots.

Robotics is not a cheap sport. Each of Von Steuben’s bots cost between $1,200 and $1,500. The controllers for the bots’ movements are one of the priciest components, at $250, and other parts, especially motors, have a habit of breaking.

Most of Von Steuben’s materials are donated, whereas well-heeled teams have the money to spring for souped-up parts that provide a competitive advantage.

Of other teams’ pneumatic pumps, Azad could only say, “We wish,” and called the “tank wheels” that help competitors’ bots roll over obstacles “a dream.”

The students are not deterred, joking that they’re willing to camp outside in Iowa if need be. Aldana assured the students that roughing it wouldn’t be necessary, and is working every connection he can think of, including launching a GoFundMe page, to finance the five-day trip.

Regardless of the outcome of the competition in Iowa, Aldana can already declare a victory for robotics at Von Steuben.

“I come from an Asian family, and girls are supposed to be more into cooking than tools,” he said.

The robotics club not only puts tools in girls’ hands, but it gives them practical experience and feeds their interest in design, he said.

Aldana pointed to female alums of the club, who are enrolled in engineering programs at Purdue University, the University of Michigan and Case Western Reserve University. One of them is working on building a race car, he said.

“We’re going to tip the whole balance of women in STEM,” vowed LeMone, the principal.

It’s not lost on the teens that their all-girls’ squad sends a message to the still male-dominated engineering field.

“At Wisconsin, there was a group of all guys and one girl, and you could tell they weren’t letting her do anything. They didn’t have equality like we do at Von,” said Azad.