Youth Programs…
More than 600 teams from around the world participated in the FIRST Championship.
The OSU Extension 4-H robotics team, NerdHerd, made it to the playoffs at the FIRST Championships in Houston in April. (Courtesy of Jessica Johnson)
McMinnville, Ore. — A Yamhill County robotics team affiliated with the Oregon State University 4-H Youth Development Program visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center after competing in the FIRST Championships in Houston this spring.
It was familiar ground for the NerdHerd team, whose workshop is set up in a former classroom at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, just steps from the space exploration exhibits.
But the FIRST Championship, an international youth robotics competition organized by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), was an eye-opener for NerdHerd co-captain and lead programmer Jacob Wojcik.
“It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Wojcik, a recent graduate of Newburgh High School. “There were hundreds of teams from all over the world in a huge venue.”
In fact, the four-day event in mid-April attracted over 600 teams from around the world. Competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition, NerdHerd competed in the Curie division with their robot, named Notezart.
The team was ranked 25th after two days of qualifying matches. On the third day, the “alliances” were selected within the division to determine the eight teams that would compete in the playoffs and finals. NerdHerd was one of three teams selected by the Alpha Bots of Michigan for their alliance.
The coalition went 1-2 in the playoffs and was eliminated in the third round.
“We’re a very small team of 12 students,” Wojcik said, “and even though our shop is on the smaller side, we’ve come quite far.”
Placing in the top third at the FIRST Robotics Competition was “a huge success,” said Jessica Johnson, NerdHerd’s second lead coach. The first lead coach is Brian Lee.
“We built a really good robot that was pretty reliable,” Johnson said, adding that another key to the team’s success was “keeping it simple and just sticking to what we knew we could do.”
From High School to 4-H
The history of youth robotics in Yamhill County dates back to 2011, when the FIRST Robotics Competition team was formed at McMinnville High School’s Academy of Engineering and Aviation Sciences. The following year, NerdHerd competed at the FIRST Championship in St. Louis. Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum founder Del Smith flew the team to the competition on his private jet.
In 2017, NerdHerd transitioned from a high school-based team to 4-H, allowing team members from across the county, and since then, NerdHerd has seen an influx of students from Newburgh, including Wojcik.
“I’ve been interested in robotics for most of my life,” he said. “When I was in eighth grade, Newburgh High School had a robotics team. I was on that team, but then COVID happened and they disbanded. I heard about NerdHerd through other people and joined in my sophomore year.”
Lead programmer Wojcik writes the code that moves the robots around the field during the 15 seconds of a match. The robots earn points depending on Wojcik’s code. After the first 15 seconds, a “driver” guides the robots around the field.
“I learned a lot about 4-H by giving presentations at the county fair with other 4-H groups,” Wojcik said.
Wojcik plans to attend Ohio State University in the fall and study physics and chemistry.
Johnson has been coaching NerdHerd for about 10 years, beginning when his son was on the team at McMinnville High School, and he has guided the team through the transition from high school to the 4-H club.
“4-H was welcoming, helpful and a great program,” she said.
Johnson said one of the attractions of the 4-H team is that the club gets out into the community and raises awareness about robotics.
“We don’t just build robots,” she says. “We do presentations. We hire. We need to get little kids engaged and interested so that when they’re older, they’ll come find us.”
–Chris Branham
Oregon State University
