%% Sibling duo share how participating in Student Competitions drive interest in STEM Careers
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% Today we’re talking to Atiksh Bhardwaj from Allen High School and Aristaa Bhardwaj from Ereckson Middle School who competed in BEST Robotics. Atiksh was part of the Ereckson team between 2016 and 2018 and Aristaa between 2020 and 2022. They served as Software Leads for the Ereckson Robotics team and won the Simulink Design Award.
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%% Why did you choose to get involved in the competition?
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% Atiksh- I had always been a fan of robots as my favorite franchise used to be Transformers, and I also had exposure to the DARPA Robotics challenge that had been occurring when I was in elementary school. During sixth grade, I started competing in robotics through FLL (FIRST LEGO League), where I had been introduced to programming and building with a LEGO robot kit. Entering middle school, I wanted to compete in a higher-level competition, and the robotics club had two sections: one for BEST robotics and another for FLL. I had chosen to join BEST in the Tech committee, which involved programming, and I’ve been doing robotics ever since.
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%% Did your brother inspire you to participate in BEST?
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% Aristaa - My brother was definitely a big factor in my interest in getting into robotics in general. Whether it was me participating in the robotics competition FLL (FIRST LEGO League) or BEST, he has always been my biggest inspiration when it came to those competitions. While inspiration is something that he gave me, he also gave me ways to overcome problems that he also learned how to solve. He is my biggest inspiration as well as teacher.
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%% What was your role on the team?
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% Atiksh - In my first year, I was a member of the Tech committee, where I had my first exposure to Simulink and MATLAB. I had the opportunity to learn the language through a series of webinars run by the creator of the VEX support package used by BEST Robotics teams. Entering my second year, I was the Software Lead of the Robotics team, and started teaching new students what I learned the previous year and programming the robot with new methods. For both years, I competed as a programmer, driver, and presented in marketing presentations for the technical component.
% Aristaa - In my first year of being on the team, I was a beginner on the Tech committee. This was the year where the competition was the first time online, so communicating with the team was very important during this time. I coded and drove the robot using Simulink and participated in many technical and marketing presentations. After my first year, I became the Tech Lead and was selected as the Robotics President at Ereckson Middle School. I continued to serve as the Tech Lead and President until the end of the competition.
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%% How did you use MATLAB/ Simulink in the competition?
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% Atiksh - During my first year, I had been learning about Simulink, and I began writing a program to create a custom drive system that would give our drivers more flexibility when maneuvering the robot across the field. The simulation feature helped me analyze what functioned in the code, and what failed, helping me further develop the robot. Additionally, I worked on part of the engineering notebook as a member of the Tech team to discuss my work.
% During my second year, I expanded on my previous work by translating it into Stateflow code, which makes use of states and transitions to accomplish different tasks. This allowed the code to be streamlined and gave the drivers more flexibility for the movement as there were no longer software restrictions to where they could move the robot in competition. The simulation feature once again helped several times during the competition to identify the ideal function of the code and determine the flaws in our robot. This helped to further optimize the robot for future competitions. This Stateflow code is what helped the team win the Simulink Design award for the first time.
% Aristaa - During my first year, I used MATLAB and Simulink to code a virtual robot. We needed to build a physical robot for the BEST competition, but the physical robot did not function. I tested the robot code using the Gamepad Simulation feature in MATLAB and verified the theoretical expected numbers which we quoted in the engineering notebook. I was the only one in the team who had a rough idea about how to code a robot using joystick buttons. I got this experience from the MATLAB and Simulink webinars that I attended over the summer.
% During my second year, I used MATLAB and Simulink to code our main robot and the autonomous game. Many of the functions were coded using the Stateflow and Simulink blocks. The code made with Simulink blocks was for our light barrel, arm movement, and robot arcade control movement. Addition blocks and gain blocks helped to add multiple inputs before directing them into the driving motors. Stateflow is used in the rack and pinion portion of our arm, autonomous, and precision control. These could have been coded with Simulink blocks, but Stateflow made it easier to visualize the functioning of our code. I added the precision control as it helped the team with driving. The idea behind the precision control was to slow down the robot during the competition so it could do the tasks with accuracy. This entire code led the team to win the Simulink Design Award for the second time.
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%% How did you get started with MATLAB/Simulink? Any resources that were particularly helpful?
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% Atiksh - The first year, I had access to a webinar series that went over the VEX Support Package in Simulink. This is where I learned my basics, and I found the resource through the senior tech members. This was my first exposure to MATLAB and Simulink. The next year, I had the chance to go to an in-person Simulink and Stateflow seminar, which gave me the inspiration to use it for that year’s competition. These opportunities helped me learn about all the basics of programming a robot in the BEST Robotics competition.
% Aristaa - During the summer, MathWorks was hosting online training sessions. This was available to all the members on the robotics team, so I took advantage to learn more. I learned a lot through those training sessions. This included learning the basics of coding a virtual robot, distance sensors, Stateflow, and so much more. I used this knowledge to code the virtual robot for the 2020 driving and autonomous game. During the second year, I applied the physical robot knowledge to the main robot of 2022. I continue to work with the physical robot, I was able to code the precision code on the robot using my knowledge from the previous year.
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%% Have you used MATLAB/Simulink in any courses/projects at school?
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% Atiksh – Although I haven’t used MATLAB in any courses at school, I have used it for personal projects. Over the summer, I worked on an electric bike project, where I made use of MATLAB and Simulink to assist with simulations before writing code for the bike. In the future, I hope to continue making use of the software in other personal projects.
% Aristaa - While I have not used MATLAB in any courses or projects at school, I have used it to prepare a challenge for incoming robotics 7th graders in the summer of 2021. This was used to see what level they were currently at, and it also allowed us to see where they could improve. In the future, I want to continue using Simulink to make simulation tests before applying the code to the project.
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%% Do you think the skills you learned during BEST will help you in the future?
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% Atiksh - I’m currently a senior in high school, and I’ve applied to several colleges to pursue a Computer Science major. For me, I learned several skills in BEST, and I think the most important one was patience. There have been many situations where the robot didn’t do what we wanted, or we had issues with decisions for the team regarding the robot’s components. Without patience, I wouldn’t have been able to think about solving those issues in the first place and may not have been inclined to do computer science as it requires plenty of patience to fix the bugs and other issues.
% Aristaa - The skills that I learned during BEST will definitely help me in the future. This was my first time working in a team as large as Ereckson. It taught me a lot about teamwork, but it also taught me a lot about the coding ups and downs. After doing BEST, I want to pursue a Computer Science Major in the future.
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%% Why do you think student competitions are valuable?
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% Atiksh - Student competitions act as pipelines for future STEM leaders. Without them, many people may not be interested in robotics or other STEM fields in the first place. Furthermore, they provide students a chance to grow in terms of skill and character as they learn new engineering techniques and basic social and communication abilities needed for a group setting. If I hadn’t received the opportunity to compete back in sixth grade, I may not have continued being interested in robotics, and I wouldn’t have grown to the person I am today. Student competitions are a platform for young members of society to grow into strong, intelligent, and driven individuals.
% Aristaa - Student competitions are very valuable because it breeds a sense of unity between students. Most kids who participate will see each other again at competitions. Whether it's against each other or working together, they will form relationships through it all. That sense of unity is what gives students different ways to grow because everyone has a different way of doing something. Whether it's coding, building, or speaking in presentations, students can share each other's ideas and those ideas are what bring student competitions together.
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%% What advice would you give students who are participating in BEST Robotics?
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% Atiksh - For robotics, there is always one important piece of advice: watch your time. Every robotics competition, whether it is BEST or some other one, there is limited time until the time of your very first match, and if you aren’t cognizant of your time, then you may run out of time. Building a robot requires trial and error from every aspect of the team from programming to fabrication to business. No matter what, keep track of where you are and set goals for the team to accomplish as much as possible within the limited time you have. With strong and steady goals, your team will be competition ready in no time!
% Aristaa - When participating in BEST Robotics, the best advice I can give is having patience. Everyone is bound to mess up, but you can always learn to come back from that mistake and learn from it. You also have peers who are there to help you to get back on your feet when you mess up. Making a mistake is embarrassing, but if you keep on learning from your mistakes, you may find new ways to solve the problem. You may have never found these solutions otherwise, which is why participating in this competition is so beneficial for everyone.
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