Combining their creativity and knowledge of computer programming, design and construction, members of the Berks County-based Kardia Robotics team recently qualified to complete at the state FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) championship event to be held in March at Saucon Valley Middle School in Hellertown. To advance to states, the team competed at the FTC state qualifier held in January at McCaskey East High School in Lancaster.

Kardia Robotics is composed of middle and high school students who are part of the Kardia Learning Center, a Christian homeschool group. As part of the competition, FTC teams design, build and operate a robot that is created to complete a specific task.

Each year's competition task is different. Past tasks have included having the robot use a claw to stack objects. This year, the game revolves around pixels, which are small, hexagonal-shaped game pieces that come in various colors.

"They release the game around September every year, and competitions start in December," noted 11th-grader Brandon Tam, one of the lead robot designers. "The name of this year's competition is Centerstage. Basically, the game revolves around stacking game elements called pixels on a vertical board. You are trying to make patterns and you get points for them depending on the colors of the pixels."

Tim Tam, one of the team coaches, explained that Brandon and other members of the design team creatively come up with robot design concepts to compete in the game. "They usually start with designing the robot components on the computer using computer aided design (CAD) software. Then they will usually fabricate the robot components out of plastic using 3D printers," he explained. "These initial prototypes help them test and interact with the parts, so they can make sure it's exactly the way they want it."

He noted that if the team members decide they want to modify the part, they will go back to the computer and modify it in the CAD program, then repeat the prototyping process until the part is exactly the way they want it. "Once they have decided on their final design, they will 3D print it again," Tim noted.

Certain elements of the robots from previous years may be used to construct the new one. "During the design process, we look at what has worked in previous years. There are certain elements of the game that are recycled. You always need wheels and certain motors, so a lot of that we can reuse," Brandon pointed out. "This year, we did make the decision to have a mostly new robot because old hardware gets outdated. We were using old motors. This year was a change for us."

Once members of the design team complete their design and building process, they hand the robot over to the programming team, which programs the robot using the Java programming language.

Another part of the team is the marketing committee, which is responsible for managing the team website and Instagram account and overseeing outreach programs at local schools. For example, the team visited High Point Baptist Academy in Geigertown to help the school start its own robotics team.

Brandon's sister, Naomi, an eighth-grader, is a member of the marketing team. "There is a lot of stuff that happens outside (competition)," she said. "We are organizing a judges' presentation, which is where we talk about our team and what we do. We also get sponsorships for our team.

"At competition, every team has to prepare an engineering portfolio. There we talk about the evolution of the robot and the outreach opportunities that our team has held and the benefits of FIRST."

Next up for the team is a competition to be held at Coatesville Area Senior High School on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 17 and 18. "Since we already advanced (to states), we are going to get more practice at the competition and compete with other teams and try and win more team awards," Brandon said.

Four teams from states will advance to the FIRST Tech Championship to be held in April in Houston. The local team has never competed at this event but would like this year to be the first time. "We don't want to have too high expectations, but we would be happy if we do go," Brandon said.

To learn more about Kardia Learning Center and the robotics team, visit http://www.kardialearningcenter.org.