Belmont High School teacher Adrian Deshais shows off Odin Provost's robotics notebook as Nicholas Pucci (front) and Zackary Capra (back) look on. (Jon Decker/The Laconia Daily Sun photo)

Zackary Capra, left, and Nicholas Pucci pose with a pair of robots inside their practice arena at Belmont High School. (Jon Decker/The Laconia Daily Sun photo)

Odin Provost left stands with his robot IDK3.0 and his teacher Adrian Deshaies. (courtesy photo/Adrian Deshaies)

Belmont High School teacher Adrian Deshais shows off Odin Provost's robotics notebook as Nicholas Pucci (front) and Zackary Capra (back) look on. (Jon Decker/The Laconia Daily Sun photo)

Zackary Capra, left, and Nicholas Pucci pose with a pair of robots inside their practice arena at Belmont High School. (Jon Decker/The Laconia Daily Sun photo)

Odin Provost left stands with his robot IDK3.0 and his teacher Adrian Deshaies. (courtesy photo/Adrian Deshaies)

BELMONT — Belmont High School freshman Odin Provost placed 62nd in the technology division at the VEX world robotics tour in Houston Texas this year with his robot, IDK 3.0. Elementary, middle, high school and even college students competed across multiple divisions, challenges and games. In total, more than 3,000 teams from 36 countries competed at the event.

Provost has been building robots since middle school and intends to create IDK 4.0 for his sophomore year.

When asked what drew him to robotics, Provost simply said, “I just find it fun to do.”

The freshman roboticist's interest and commitment arguably goes deeper than just fun. Provost spent more than 1,000 hours designing, building, troubleshooting and programming his own robot through last year.

“Odin comes here almost every day after school,” said the team’s faculty member, Adrian Deshaies, as he gestured to Odin’s robot. “This is 100 percent his own work.”

The robot weighs about 25 pounds, and is made up of a series of modular metal beams, gears, wheels, sensors, pistons, motors and wires. Even more impressive is Odin’s binder that documents his work on the machine. It is filled with hundreds of pages of charts, notes, programming code and other data.

IDK 3.0 is built with a specific purpose: scoring as many points as possible during an arena-style game. The playing area is a small zone containing ring toss-like objects called goals, a series of hard plastic rings, and a pair of see-saw-like balance boards, one on each side. During the game, two teams made up of two robots must collect as many goals and rings as possible and keep them in their respective territories.

The robots can use arms to grab and drag the base of the goals, conveyor belt collection systems to scoop up rings, and more finely controlled grabbers to place rings on goals and increase their point value. 

At the beginning of the match, the robots have to rely on code written by students to autonomously collect points. Once that portion has passed, the robots are piloted by their creators via remote control. 

“It’s 15 seconds autonomous and then it’s a minute and 45 for driving,” Deshaies explained. 

At the time of this article, Provost was quarantining at home after a positive COVID test, so he wasn’t able to demonstrate his robot in action. However, two more robotics team members, Zackary Capra and Nicholas Pucci were more than happy to do so in his stead.  

The pair piloted the machines within the arena, picking up rings, moving goals, and climbing the balance boards. 

Despite their bulky frames, the robots demonstrated surprising agility. This power, however, comes at a cost. Capra and Pucci said they swap out the rechargeable lithium ion batteries after every match. 

“This is what I wish more education was,” said Deshaies, emphasizing the practical applications of mathematics and problem solving inherent in robotics.

“From a teacher’s standpoint, I was working with middle school students on the Pythagorean theorem and figuring out, ‘well you know this distance but how can you use this so you don't have to build it and find out it doesn’t work.” 

 In addition to the technical side, students also learn interpersonal and project management skills  as they take on these daunting projects.

Capra and Nicholas are sophomores, soon to be juniors and have worked extensively together on their robot. They've known each other since early childhood, and for them, communication is the primary skill they’ve learned from robotics.

“So we were given the nickname the old married couple, because we argued so much. We couldn’t ever figure out who was doing what, and if this was the right way to do it,” said Capra. 

“We still do that,” responded Pucci. 

“Yeah… but we’re not as bad,” said Capra.”

 “We learned how to communicate-,” Pucci started.

“Both of my kids were doing robotics,” said Amira Provost, Odin’s mother, “My daughter did robotics for two years, and I’m definitely more involved than I was previously. I think its also been a little bit of a challenge with Odin because we are in the process of getting him tested for autism, but I’m very proud of both my kids.” 

Amira highlighted the personal and social skills her children gained from the robotics program, stating that both children are now more outgoing. 

“I think it really helped my daughter’s confidence,” Provost said. “I think it’s helping Odin learn to communicate better with other kids, and work with other teams, so it’s really opened him up.”

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