Rolling Robots InvenTeam Attends EurekaFest at MIT

A team of 14 Rolling Robots students recently attended the EurekaFest at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. EurekaFest is a multi-day celebration designed to empower a legacy of inventors through activities that inspire youth, honor role models, and encourage creativity and problem solving. The team had been selected last September as one of 15 InvenTeams funded by the Lemelson-MIT Program to develop an invention of their own design from inception to working prototype.

Introducing Delta Sleep

For over 2 years the team has been learning the invention process and developing their idea. They chose a topic that was a serious problem for their peer group of high school students: Sleep Deprivation. For students, sleep deprivation is a common ailment that might cause them to fall asleep in class in the short term, but also pave the way towards serious future health problems as well. After seeking expert help on how to best measure and influence sleeping patterns they set out to develop a personal device and app that will monitor sleep and alertness throughout the day and use this data attempt to help the user sleep more efficiently.

Traveling to Cambridge

Thanks to our sponsors Simple Human the team had their airfare to Boston fully covered and enjoyed an uneventful flight. The Lemelson-MIT program provided for their transportation and the dormitory rooms which would be their home for the next 5 nights.

The team toured the MIT campus and even ventured across town to visit that other school in Cambridge.

EurekaFest Showcase

EurekaFest is the year-end celebration of invention at MIT where the High School InvenTeams get to present their working prototypes. Students showcase their inventions alongside the top collegiate inventors that have won the coveted 2019 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize.

While in Cambridge, the team was invited to tour the laboratory of Alexandria LaunchLabs, an organization which provides a premier startup platform and seed capital for early stage life science and ag-tech companies. Through this visit students got to see what life is like in a startup company and gained some inspiration for their future endeavors.

Awards Ceremony

The final day closed with an award ceremony. All 15 teams received a nice recognition trophy and a few were given special awards. A team from the MIT Beaver Works had reviewed all of the teams at the showcase and awarded the top technical award to the team from Rolling Robots.

This “Golden Beaver” award really capped off the year, the students were elated that their work was recognized. They went home energized and ready to proceed further down the path to invention.

There was an interview with the Invention Officer at MIT and our team gets some great recognition. Listen to the pod cast:

Interview with Leigh Estabrooks of Lemellson-MIT program

if you want to jump ahead to where our project is described start at 5:15 Or read the summary

Team Shellshock at BattleBots
Team Shellshock at BattleBots 2019

If you missed ShellShock on Discovery Channel, you can see it again on the Science Channel tonight. BattleBots 2019 Season Episode 7 airs Wednesday, July 31st on the Science Channel!
You can also check out Team ShellShock's post-match interview on our Facebook. Please LIKE our page if you are inspired by our amazing Anderson. You can also Sign Up for our Mailing List so you will get notifications from us about Rolling Robots news and promotions.

Rolling Robots' BattleBots Team is one of a select few High School teams that made it onto the 2019 BattleBots TV show on the Discovery Channel! (Season 4, Episode 7).

Congratulations to all our team members - Steven Davis, Anderson Sutandinata, Trevor Heise, Michael Huang, and Sean Stassi!

These tech genius have been building and coding robots for many years by taking Rolling Robots workshops and participating in robotics competitions such as the VEX Robotics and FIRST Robotics competitions, as well as ROGOGAMES.

Think you have what it takes to be a BattleBots champion? Here's how to get started the Rolling Robots way:

1) First, start off with our Robots Rock workshop to learn the basics of Robot Building:

Robots Rock Summer Camp

Young girl at Rolling Robots showing off her robot
Robots Rock summer camp student showing off the robot she built

2) Next, advance to our Battle Robot Building camp to learn how build and compete with a real battlebot:

Battle Robot Building Summer Camp

If you don't have time to join us this summer, consider joining the afterschool membership program during the school year.

Rolling Robots Membership Options

Many of our students are excited to participate in a robotics competition team as early as 4th Grade.

3) Win some competitive events with us:

Sumobot Competition Winners
Anderson was the champion at ROBOGAMES as a 5th Grader

VEX World Champions
Anderson, Steven, and Michael at the 2017 VEX Robotics World Championship

4) In the process of building robots for competition, students will learn hands-on skills by using industrial tools and apply their knowledge towards building actual robots.

Student working on a milling machine

5) When you have completed all of the above, you could be invited to be on our heavyweight BattleBots team!

Team Fixing Shellshock
The team working on Shellshock

7700Y Advances to Vex Worlds

This tournament season, Rolling Robots sent 11 teams to the 2019 Vex Robotics California State Championship. Our amazing teams knocked it out of the ballpark again, taking home 3 awards, including the highest honor given, the Excellence Award, qualifying them for the World Championship!

omgrobots
Our new T-shirt designed for the State Championship.

Team 7700A from Glendale takes home the Build Award

Team 7700A had a great showing in the qualification rounds and ending up ranked 5th with a 4-2-1 record. They made it all the way to the Semi-Finals before being eliminated. This was not the end for them, however, as they won the Build Award for having a robot with exceptional build quality.

omgrobots
Team 7700A wins the Build Award at the 2019 California State Championship.

Team 7700E wins the Judges Award

Team 7700E showed up with high hopes after completing the last regular season tournament undefeated. Unfortunately, they were eliminated prematurely in the qualification rounds. Feeling somewhat discouraged, the team got on the road back to Los Angeles but received some surprise good news on the way home: they had won the Judges Award as the favorite team of the technical judges! So they didn't go home empty handed after all and everybody's mood was instantly improved.

All-in-all our trip to Bakersfield was a success. We came home with each team winning a State Championship Award.

The following day we were in Los Angeles for the continuation of the State Championships. At this event we had the 7700Y team competing at the VRC level and the Elementary teams 7700J, 7700P, and 7700V, competing on the VEX IQ side.

7700Y Wins the Highest Award

Our 7700Y team had been working hard all year with the goal of getting to the world championship by winning the Excellence Award at State. The Excellence Award is extremely prestigious and is described by the REC Foundation as follows:

The "Excellence" award is given to the overall top team. It is the highest honor given out in the VEX Robotics Competition. The recipient of this award is a team that exemplifies overall excellence in creating a high quality VEX robotics program. This team excels in many areas and is a shining example of dedication, devotion, hard work, and teamwork. As a strong contender in numerous award categories, this team deserves to be recognized for building a quality robotics program and a "team" committed to quality in everything that they do.

We are extremely proud of Team 7700Y and all our other teams for their stunning accomplishments. We consider them to be shining examples of what every team should aspire to be and we wish them continued success at the upcoming VEX World Championship. Stay tuned for more news from Rolling Robots in the near future as our teams make preparations for the challenges ahead.

omgrobots
A year of hard work pays off! Team 7700Y wins the Excellence Award