The robots are small, but the competition is fierce and the excitement is off the charts. Earlier this month, Charlotte Latin School hosted its annual SumoBot tournament: 21 teams from the the Middle School and the Lower School tested their engineering skills by facing off with Lego robots they designed to overpower their opponents. 

The event, organized by Andrew Hammitt (Lower School Science Teacher) and Dr. David Taylor (Middle School Innovation and Design Teacher), has grown in the past five years: it used to be held in a hallway in the Science, Art, and Technology Building, moved to the foyer of the Middle School, and now occupies the Faulkner Court in the Jones Arena of the Beck Student Activities Center.

Taylor extols the lessons learned by the young roboticists who stay after school in the Lower School and come in early before Middle School: “They learn the coding language, they test and iterate and make changes, they problem-solve, they need to collaborate and compromise. For some students, it’s a gateway to being in our department; others do it for a year or two and move on to other opportunities. Many of them don’t even realize that they’re learning.”

The Chrome Dinos team won the tournament, with Overdrive taking second place and Total Annihilation third. All the students learned new skills and engineering approaches — so we asked some of the Middle School SumoBot veterans to share their strategies to make their bots as mighty as possible.

“We coded our bot so it can come out of the box and push as much as it can. And it’s one kilo on the dot, which is the weight limit.” — Seventh grader Tyler S., Chrome Dinos team

“It spins toward the other bots so it can attack faster.” — Seventh grader Ruby N., Tiny Not Mighty team

“We’ve got a ramp so it can go under other bots. And we’ve got a wall for defense.” — Seventh grader Ally S., Rizz Robotics team

“We didn’t worry about making it pretty or symmetrical — it’s just functional. And it’s not too rigid: we’ve got some give in the suspension.” — Sixth grader Powers T., Blizzard team

“The strategy is to go right first and see which way the other bot’s going to go.” — Seventh grader Khumo C., Gertrude team

“We have little claws that help—” 

“—to get under the other bot—”

“—and we used heavy parts to make it harder for the other team.” — Sixth graders Ari S., Nicolas R., and Beale P., Overdrive team

“Going in opposite directions each time. And trying our best.” — Sixth grader Sofia H., Quackomobile67 team