KAOTIC looking to make typical return to state

By Robert Williams

Editor

KAOTIC Robotics Lead Mentor Eric Schaefer is in his second year as head coach and he and his team are looking to continue Frazee-Vergas’ annual success.

Schaefer has been with the program the past eight years, having taken over for Andy Paulson when he left the district. Schaefer brings a passion for both robotics and leading his kids to success.

Schaefer’s background is from the technical field working in engineering and as a machinist at Team Industries in Audubon. One of his three daughters got him into robotics.

“My oldest daughter was in seventh grade and she wanted to come in and see what they were doing,” Schaefer said. “She said, ‘Dad, I think you’ll really like this too. Why don’t you come with me?’”

Eric’s daughter Paige is well-known for her incredible success in FFA. Schaefer credits her achievement to time spent in the KAOTIC program.

“Those things that she did in FFA wouldn’t have been possible without her joining robotics,” said Schaefer.

Paulson introduced himself to the Schaefers on that first meeting and both Eric and Paige were instantly impressed and became part of the team.

“Being a machinist, it’s right up my alley,” he said. “I drank the Kool Aid that first day and I haven’t missed a day since.”

Paulson left for a position in the Perham school district two years ago allowing Schaefer to take over the program.

“I was perfectly happy doing what I had always done and just helped out,” he said. “You’re going to get the same support from me you’ve always gotten. It’s so much fun. The competitions that we go to.”

Part of what makes robotics so enjoyable is the camaraderie between teams and how much they are willing to help each other out. So much so, a new word has been coined to replace competitions.

“It’s not so much a competition,” said Schaefer. “We call them co-opertitions.”

The team traveled to Bemidji two weekends ago for a Week Zero scrimmage. Schaefer beamed about how his team and how his kids were first up when it came to bringing cooperation to the competition.

“My drivers hardly drove because they were fixing other people’s robots,” said Schaefer. “The atmosphere, when you go to an event, is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You’ll hear someone from the pit administration announce a team needs a part and all of a sudden you’ll see eight guys digging in their toolboxes.”

KAOTIC is in its 11th season and Frazee-Vergas high school has been represented at the state tournament each season but one.

“And that was a fluke,” said Schaefer. “We’re in the upper echelon of teams in Minnesota, we have been for a long time, and I don’t plan on letting that stop anytime soon.”

Minnesota is one of only three states with a state tournament and is the third largest FIRST Robotics geographic competitor. Teams earn points at each competition. The top 36 teams advance to state, along with a potential appearance at the FRC Worlds in Houston. A win at one of the regional tournaments during the season creates an automatic bid to Worlds.

Each season brings a new game revealed by FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) each January. The teams have six to seven weeks to complete their build and get ready for seven weeks of play. The same game will be played throughout the season.

Competition is played with a three-team alliance versus three other teams on a field the size of a volleyball court. Most people assume robotics is similar to BattleBots, a televised version of robots bent on destroying each other. High school robotics is completely different.

This year’s game is called Charged Up. It is all about the renewable energy aspect of things, according to Schaefer. There are multiple game pieces, one a small traffic cone and the other squircles, it’s not a square, not a circle, and made out of a pool floaty material. The object of the game is to put the cones on nodes in two different spots and the squircles in two different boxes.

The game also includes a double-hinged platform where teams can get their robot on it and balance in the first 15 seconds of play for extra points.

That task is fully automated as the balancing act is dependent on the kids’ programming. A 15-second warning buzzer goes off and drivers jump to their controllers.

The next 2.5 minutes are controlled by drivers. 

“It’s programming and it’s math,” Schaefer said. 

Strategy is also a big key to winning.

“You can be a mediocre robot and have a good strategy and beat people,” said Schaefer. “You don’t need to be the best robot; you just have to come up with the best strategy.”

The key to coming up with that strategy is communication between the team and with other teams, especially at the early scrimmage. The focus of competition is the executing of robotic tasks, plus strategy and the cooperative with your alliance. Those alliances change frequently as the teams switch spots during play. An ally in one game could be a competitor in the next.

“When we go and talk about strategy we talk about here’s my weaknesses, here’s my strengths, here’s what I’m capable of doing and now they know how to stop me but they still have to do it,” said Schaefer.

During the opening weeks of building different groups work on different tasks to bring the whole team success.

“I’ve got 2-3 guys that build the entire robot and some 7th. 8th grade and 9th grade kids that are building a second drive base robot just for when we want to practice on the field,” said Schaefer.

The second robot is used to defend against the competition bot.

“It’s a little more competitive when you put another robot in front of them,” said Schaefer.

Spreading the work throughout the entire team is another reason why KAOTIC has been so good. Schaefer stresses not all the jobs are fun, but sometimes those jobs are the most critical to the team.

“Everybody has a job,” said Schaefer. “We have kids in the stands that sit with tablets and we use a scouting app. Is it always the most fun job to sit and scout in the stands? No, but to me it’s the most important thing. We just rotate them in and out so everybody gets a break.”

Being part of the collective team, building communication skills, along with all the learning and strategy make up a big part of what robotics is about.

“It’s not just about robots; the smallest portion of what we do is actually robots,” said Schaefer. “Don’t get me wrong; that’s the coolest part.”

There is no limit to what kind of robots the team will see from their own creation and the competition. For this season, they created a bot with an arm to use to move the game pieces.

“We basically made an excavator—that’s the easiest way to describe it,” said Schaefer. “It’s got a tall stand and a second arm and then a lead arm to squeeze cones and cubes and place them. The beautiful part about high school robotics is if the kids want to build it they build it. It doesn’t come from me; it comes from them. What you get when you put a whole bunch of kids in a room and tell them this is your task, make it happen, there are a plethora of things that could happen. There are some teams that are building robots that shoot the cone or cube in the right spots. It’s unreal and they make them 99 percent of the time. You never really know what you’re going to get when you put a whole bunch of kids in a room.”

Schaefer is quick to credit the kids for the success KAOTIC is continuing to build upon this season.

“Good students—it really comes down to good students,” he said.

Robotics is not necessarily affected by school or class sizes, unlike most sports. According to Schaefer, one of the best teams and multiple state champions in the state is from Greenbush.

The one thing teams need to succeed is money.

“This is a very expensive sport to do,” said Schaefer. 

Events run from Wednesday through Saturday with the closest venue being Grand Forks. 

“You could imagine hotels for 20 kids and 5-6 adults; hotels are our biggest expense,” said Schaefer. “The parents are great. I don’t think I’ve cooked a meal the last two or three years and we don’t eat out other than one night when we have pizza.”

The team helps set up the competition field on Wednesday night. Parents take turns cooking meals the rest of the weekend.

“There’s a lot of help and parental involvement and the parents that come, usually they come to the first one and they’re hooked,” said Schaefer.

Support from the business community, especially manufacturing, is essential for robotics teams.

KAOTIC is the benefactor of needed donations of funds and materials from businesses and major sponsors around the region like Team Industries, BTD Manufacturing, SJE Rhombus Control Products, KLN Family Brands and Alexandria Industries. The team also gets essential annual support from United Community Bank, Arvig, Lakeshirts, Terry’s Custom Wood Moldings & Furniture, 4imprint, Frazee Sportsman’s Club and the Vergas Lions.

“That robot is about $4,000,” Schaefer said. “To put it on the field at my first event that’s $6,000, so we’ve just spent $10,000 to go play the first time. I still have to feed the kids, all of those students need a place to stay.”

While Schaefer’s career in manufacturing around the region is a bonus, it’s the support from those companies and organizations that are critical to his team.

“They have been more than gracious with money to get these things done,” said Schaefer. “It’s every manufacturing business around here.”

There is also a reciprocal exchange between robotics program and the manufacturing businesses as the investment of those companies in the program is typically returned by some of the kids becoming future employees.

“I have four kids that have graduated out of Frazee and the robotics program that are automation engineers or engineers at companies around the state,” said Schaefer. “They don’t just go there and work. They go there and flourish and that’s great. We had five students that went to work at SJE last summer.”

Schaefer and team members typically visit the donating businesses to showcase their robot and always get a positive response.

One of the team’s fundraisers, a robot showcase, silent auction and a dinner of chili, pork and a mashed potato bar is coming up from 4-7 p.m., on Saturday, March 25, at the Frazee Event Center.

Other big dates coming up:

March 8-11 Great North Regional, Grand Forks

March 25 Robot Showcase fundraiser, Frazee

March 29-April 1 Seven Rivers Regional, LaCrosse, Wisconsin

April 19-22 FIRST Championship, Houston, Texas

To support KAOTIC Robotics visit kaoticrobotics.org and the team also posts updates from competitions on Facebook.