By: Carmella Whittaker
Madison’s Youth Robotics Shines at Expo
Engineering Expo is an amazing celebration of UW-Madison’s student organizations, university research groups, and companies for the entire community to see, exceptionally geared to introduce STEM to the younger generation. After years of academic and industry experience, a Badger doesn’t forget where they found their spark for STEM, and for many, it may have been at the EXPO’s BadgerBots exhibition.
BadgerBots Robotics Corporation (Nonprofit) was founded in 2010, hosting summer camps across Madison with the goal of fostering a STEM interest in students from kindergarten to 12th grade. Each age range receives a tailored experience showcasing the hands-on aspects of STEM.
“We try to introduce interesting things to younger kids that would get them engaged, that they probably don’t realize is STEM,” Program Director Andrew Pranger states. BadgerBots achieves this through a variety of summer camps, one of which uses Minecraft as a teaching tool: “You can mod [change] the game and how it works; that’s a great way to learn programming. You can use Redstone in the game to create electronics — another great way to teach kids introductory STEM skills.” These experiences are hosted at many Madison schools and become more advanced the older the students are.
“We have a goal of keeping our really bright minds in the state of Wisconsin; we have a thriving STEM community here.”
-Andrew Pranger
Alongside camps, BadgerBots also facilitates robotics competition teams for a range of interested youth. They act as the program delivery partner for FIRST LEGO league, the youngest league of robotics competition open to 2nd through 8th graders and further support the FIRST Tech Challenge for 7th to 12th graders and the FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) for 9th-12th graders. In past years, the BadgerBots FRC robot has reached over 7 feet tall. This year’s robot is much shorter yet weighs 115 pounds and can pack and shoot up to 76 one-inch diameter balls to compete in the FRC’s annual game.
Athletic energy is brought to the hectic process of FIRST competitions, as Pranger describes. “If you play soccer or play football, you can have the expectation that the sport you’re playing and the rules are going to be very similar… We are given a new game the first weekend of January, and then we have about two months to build a robot. We have to fully strategize what we’re going to do, design the robot, manufacture it, iterate upon what we’ve designed, [and] take it to competition.”
FIRST awards teams and selects finalists based on both robotic performance and community impact. BadgerBots has won the FIRST Impact Award five times, and nowhere is their work better showcased than at Engineering Expo. “We make it a goal of ours to come back every year because it serves as a really big recruiting drive for us,” Pranger explains. “We give people in the community an opportunity to drive our robots, ask questions about it, and get up close and personal to see what kinds of work goes into a robot.”
Amelie Wieben, high school senior and Co-President of BadgerBots FRC team, became involved with BadgerBots after one of their school presentations and aims to bring home the Impact award. After doing 71 outreach events in the past year, EXPO is next up for BadgerBots. “We had [a] Bucky Badger mascot drive our robot, and it’s something that we kind of focus on when we’re doing presentations for the FIRST Impact Award because it’s such a cool event,” she states.
Leading with Wieben, Co-President and high school junior Bradley Chumanov got involved in BadgerBots through summer camp and now coordinates the mechanical, electrical, and design sub teams to make one functioning robot. Along with the long competition nights, organizing a team has been a rewarding experience. “Stepping away from doing all the things myself [has been difficult], but you have to let people learn, and then sometimes it’ll be even better. It’s really fun to see other people really succeed,” Chumanov states.
Over half of BadgerBots graduates stay in Wisconsin for college, with a third specifically going to UW-Madison. “We can help spark any interest you have, we can further develop, challenge, and push you to absolute greatness, and then we can help you get to the college [and] career that you want.” Pranger concludes. “We have a goal of keeping our really bright minds in the state of Wisconsin; we have a thriving STEM community here.”
Currently ranked first in Wisconsin, FRC’s Team 1306 BadgerBots is set to compete in the state championship in the same weekend as Expo, making for an exhilarating weekend for robotics across the state. BadgerBots went undefeated (17-0) in the Appleton competition and are now 33-1-0 on the season. They will be attending the FIRST Championship, a competition for the best teams across the world, from April 29th – May 2nd.
To find out more about BadgerBots, their program offerings, and get involved, visit badgerbots.org or email info@badgerbots.org. If you are an interested student, adult who wants to volunteer, or are hosting any community event where a robot could make it cooler (which is every event), please reach out. Check out FIRST robotics competition, the current challenge, and more at firstinspires.org. Go Badger(Bot)s!