Moreno Valley High Robotics Program Training Next Generation Of Engineers

Every day after school, Richard MacPherson’s Moreno Valley High School classroom transforms from an ordinary math classroom to the headquarters for MoVal Robotics.

“At the end of the day, they gotta tear all this down and put it away and put my tables back so I can teach tomorrow,” MacPherson said at a recent meeting of the group. “One of the years, it took 45 minutes to set the field up every day.”

With tables and chairs pushed to the perimeter of the room, the 18-member team can get to work building the playing field and gathering all of the tools and equipment they’ll need to test and improve their robot for competition in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC).

“Every year, there’s a different competition where students come together to build a robot in order to play a certain game and get points,” Ashley Monroy, a junior and team president, said. “This year, our season is called ‘Into The Deep.’”

In order to score points in this underwater-themed competition, players have to build robots capable of placing blocks into buckets, one short and one tall; clipping blocks onto the rungs of a structure in the middle of the playing field, one low and one high; and ascending to the top rung of the structure.

All of the teams got access to the challenge last September, and have been working on their robots ever since. For MoVal Robotics, the hardest part of the challenge was finding creative ways to ensure their robot had the functionality it needed while remaining within the size limitations set by FTC.

“We’ve definitely had to keep a very close eye on that and make a couple adjustments in a couple spots to make sure that the robot isn’t going over the size limit while still being able to perform at its full capacity,” Troy Barnes, a junior, said.

Last month, the team finally cracked the code on getting their robot to climb up the structure and hang from the top rung.

“It’s a process,” MacPherson said. “They made the decision early on that they were going to focus on scoring first and then hanging as they could get to it, and it’s just taken this much time.”

Making things even harder is the way in which competitions happen. The first challenge is the timing. For the first 30 seconds, the robot has to run fully autonomously. After that, the team has 90 seconds for the two drivers to control the robot in an attempt to get as many points as possible. The teams then have 30 seconds for their robots to climb the structure.

Even during practice runs, it’s a difficult feat for all of their hard work and effort to come together seamlessly. But it’s made even more complicated during actual competitions when instead of one robot on the playing field, there are four — two per side.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for contact,” Miguel Aguilar, a junior and team vice president, said. “And sometimes a team is going to be wanting to take the same thing as you or we’ve had situations where our partner, like their robot, just breaks down or maybe we’ll break down, and it’s a lot of quick thinking.”

Beyond the competition, MacPherson said the program allows the students to learn valuable skills like teamwork, perseverance, problem solving and can end up changing the trajectory of their lives.

“I’ve had students who came in as freshmen saying they’re just here to join and see what happens,” he said. “One said, ‘I don’t plan on going to college. I plan on working in fast food my whole life, that’s what my parents did.’ She’s now a mechanical engineer.”

Senior Ahmahd Carreathers, who said he can be lazy in some aspects of his life, said that’s never been the case with robotics where there’s always a new puzzle to be figured out.

“Figuring out new ways to just build and solve a problem that really just, like, seems complicated, but once you get into the process, it’s simple,” he said. “It’s not easy, but it’s simple, and working with others and seeing what they came up with, it just really builds your imagination.”

And that imagination extends to what the students want to do after graduating from high school, from going to college to become engineers — software, mechanical, technical — to going into the military in order to have access to additional opportunities.

But MacPherson wasn’t always all-in on robotics.

“Jacob, the other mentor and my son, is the one who got me hooked on it,” he said. “ He did it at Heritage High School [in Menifee] for four years.”

 MacPherson then convinced the administrators at MoVal High to start a robotics club on campus and MoVal Robotics was born, competing in its first FTC tournament in 2019.

“Some days it’s a struggle to get the common sense going, but their ingenuity and their intellect and ability to pick things up and adapt is mind boggling,” Jacob said. “And working with them is an absolute gift.”

This year, MoVal Robotics came in first in the first three league meets of the season and second in the final league meet. At Sunday’s InterLeague Tournament (ILT), MoVal Robotics placed second and received the Innovate Award. The team also secured its spot in the California – Los Angeles Championship SoCal meet set for March 8.