PHS WINS!! 

 

 Spring 2013 Champions 

A robot called the B52 Flying Fortress, built by Plainview High School students Trae Griego, Grant Ratliff and Jacob Grimaldo, beat out all other competitors to win the Tin Man VIII South Plains College Robotics Class Robot Battle held May 4 at the Reese Center campus.

The winning robot was one of three designed by PHS robotics team members. Students spent six weeks designing, constructing and testing the remote-controlled robots that are built similar to the Robo Wars robots seen on TV.

PHS students Brett Ferguson, Kalen Riley, Taylor McCasland and David Bolding built a robot they named American Muscle. David Barkley, Edgar Hernandez, Edgar Arellano and Christian Valles built a robot known as Plainview Punk. All the students worked as the pit crew and support staff for the Flying Fortress to help in bringing the championship to Plainview.

The Flying Fortress competed in three rounds against six teams from South Plains College Levelland and Reese Center to take the championship.

Round one was a head-to-head battle against two other robots. The robots’ task is to disable other robots by any means possible. Three robots are placed in an “arena,” and the last robot functioning is declared the winner.

After eight minutes, the first round was awarded to PHS.

Round two lasted five minutes with the round being awarded to PHS.

The final round, against Reese’s Wonka’s Revenge, was scheduled to last five minutes but moved into overtime with 12 minutes passing before the championship was awarded to PHS’s B52 Flying Fortress. During that round the SPC robot had drive problems and the PHS robot had electrical issues. Both teams used their allotted five-minute timeouts to make needed repairs. After repairing the damage and replacing dead batteries, the PHS team rallied during the final three minutes of intense battling to take the victory.

Rebecca Graves of the SPC Levelland campus presented the Tin Man trophy to the PHS team members.

Robotics currently is an extracurricular activity at PHS and is sponsored by PHS teacher Terry Nelson.