Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Left to right: Logan Wirkkala-Scheller, his mother/chaperone Jasmine, Ron Wright (coach, mentor), Andy Rojas-Meliton. The team took this photo to thank their sponsors before they knew that they had won second overall in the National Skills USA competition in Atlanta. Photo by Ron Wright.
Above: Logan Wirkkala-Scheller left and Andy Rojas-Meliton right finishing their programming response to Task #2: combining the Yaskawa robot arm, two sensors, the Siemens PLC, and the light tree. The lights indicate which part of the process the robot is currently in. In this photo, the arm is turning the workpiece so the sensors can check if the part is finished. Photo by Ron Wright.
Last week, the Naselle-Grays River Valley High School Robotics team competed in Atlanta at the National SkillsUSA competition in the Robotics and Automation Technology event. During the competition, the two-member team of Andy Rojas-Meliton and Logan Wirkkala-Scheller had eight hours to design, construct, wire, and program a robot work cell with controlling PLC to move objects, test them with sensors and a camera for flaws, and place them into the correct bins. After the event, the judges said this is typically a three-day job in the real world. Logan and Andy finished second overall, just barely behind the first place team who got a little farther in their programming of the final task.
This was a remarkable achievement for the team since it had never been able to practice with a robot arm due to its very high price tag. Before qualifying for Atlanta with their first-place finish at the state competition at Clover Park Technical College, they had viewed some videos on how to operate their robot and were allowed to try some simulation software.
In addition to their silver medals, scholarships, and free tools, they also earned the prestigious "Skills Points Certificates," which signifies that they are ready to be employed in this field right now. These certificates are signed by the companies that coordinated the SkillsUSA national event: Intelitek, Nissan, Yaskawa, and Siemens.
The boys were very pleased with how well they did. "There were no surprises," said Logan. "I really enjoyed looking around and seeing that we were beating all of the other teams." Concurring, Andy said, "We were ready for everything... Most teams really struggled with coding the PLC's. I was done with that in less than 20 minutes. It was easy. Logan had done so many practice wirings that he did that easy, too." Reiterating the many comments offered by email followers, Naselle School Superintendent Lisa Nelson said, "Wow!! Absolutely amazing. Great job, everyone. So proud of you all. Yeehaw." Naselle-Grays River Valley High School Principal Justin Laine said, "The Naselle-Grays River Valley School District would like to thank all of the individual, organizational, and corporate sponsors who made generous contributions in support of our robotics program and this experience. We could not do this without their support."
Reader Comments(0)