Pittsburgh region high schools celebrate BotsIQ competition wins

When Charleroi Area High School first entered the annual BotsIQ competition in 2014, the school nearly came in last place.

Eight years later, to the shock of many team members, Charleroi was crowned “grand champion” of the regional high school robotics competition.

“Everyone was surprised and excited because we’re a pretty small school,” said Nick Arico, the team’s adviser who also teaches high school chemistry. “It was a lot of work for us to compete with the bigger schools.”

Robots dashed, lashed and smashed into each other during the 17th annual competition on April 29-30 at California University of Pennsylvania.

Students from 41 regional schools tested their bots’ strength as they dueled their 15-pound bots gladiator-style in an industrial ring. This weekend’s bracket-style competition was 2022’s final contest after three preliminaries in March.

Charleroi earned the “grand champion” title based on the team’s success in battles as well as documentation and interviews. The district came in second to Bedford High School in the physical competition.

Other weekend winners included:

• Best Engineered Bot: Charleroi Area High School
• King of the Ring: Fox Chapel Area High School
• Best Engineering Documentation: Southmoreland High School
• Rookie of the Year: Penns Valley High School
• Coolest Bot: Admiral Peary AVTS
• Best Sportsmanship: Punxsutawney Area High School

Charleroi students credited their victories to their bot’s unique design.

Most students design their robots with a spinning weapon that allows them to throw their competitor into the ring’s ceiling. Charleroi students cleverly added a wedge to their bot that prohibited their opponents from hurling them into the air.

Charleroi senior Brad McIlvaine said he was expecting his team to “do all right” during the competition, but the grand champion win was a “big surprise.”

Fox Chapel senior Shrivardhan Thada had similar expectations. He said his team’s bot “performed well beyond” what he predicted.

Fox Chapel was crowned “king of the ring” after it dominated multiple opponents in a rumble. Thada believes the school’s bot was “tailor made” to last the longest in the rumble.

Fox Chapel team adviser and technology education teacher Ryan Siniawski said he “could not have been happier” to watch his students take home a win after their hard work this year.

“Given the inexperience of our members, we are very satisfied by our performance and can only expect to build from our success and improve in future years,” Siniawski said via email.

As teams designed and constructed their bots throughout the year, they had to follow a 40-page book of technical guidelines. Before each battle, BotsIQ safety inspectors checked and approved every bot to ensure it met requirements.

For the second year in a row, Southmoreland earned “best engineering documentation.” The documentation that was evaluated included the bot’s weapons system, drive system, power system and materials.

Southmoreland team adviser and STEM teacher Jason Sharek said the highly detailed documentation “took the efforts of everybody” on the team.

BotsIQ aims to “mimic the industry” with its regulations, guidelines and safety procedures, according to BotsIQ executive director Michel Conklin. BotsIQ is a nonprofit, manufacturing workforce development program and part of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Tooling & Machining Foundation.

Student participants gain life skills such as teamwork and time management through their participation in BotsIQ.

“I learned a lot about teamwork from the bots class,” Southmoreland senior Maddie Nicklow said. “Whether (we’re doing something) hands-on or sharing ideas.”

Additionally, the annual competition prepares high schoolers for potential careers in fields like engineering and manufacturing.

“(BotsIQ is) one of the rare opportunities for high school students to explore mechanical engineering, some electrical engineering and project management,” Thada said via email. “It packages all of those things in a fun tournament of 15-pound hunks of metal smashing into each other.”