Students from North Salem High School will soon compete at an international robotics tournament for the second time in the school’s history.

The three-person squad,“Valkyrie,” will travel to St. Louis for the VEX World Robotics Championships to test their entirely student-built bot against others from over 60 different countries. The competition begins Tuesday, April 21.

West Salem High School, which hasn’t missed a world championship in over 15 years, is also sending teams.

St. Louis is a long way, hundreds of hours and two entire robot designs from where the North team started last spring.

Their bot will take part in a seemingly simple game it’s been playing all year, competing against other team’s robots in a 12 by 12 foot arena.

The robots collect colored blocks from depositories around the playing field, then place them in raised tubes.

Extra points are given for “controlling” the center of the goal tubes and for parking robots in the correct place at the end of the round.

Students employ computer programming, mechanical engineering and teamwork to hone their robot’s skills before school, during their lunch period and after school throughout the year. 

Their bot not only has to be able to be operated remotely, but it has to be able to operate on its own for a portion of the game. 

And the game has another twist. Students are asked to partner with other teams on tournament day in two versus two battles, making alliance-building a key facet of the competition. 

The members of Valkyrie went into the year hoping to make more friends among their competitors.

That’s where sophomore book keeper Catie Blesoch shines. She has a strategy to draw crowds.

“The method is bringing snacks,” she said. “It’s kind of like a trap.”

Her job, keeping a record of the team’s progress, is crucial. Bookkeeping scores clinched the qualification of the last North team to make it to worlds in 2024.

Valkyrie’s bot has its own unique route filing and adjustment system, making it easy to quickly adjust tactics close to match time. 

It also has a troubleshooting feature that tracks figures from temperature to torque to pinpoint issues with the robot on short notice.

The bot is complete with its own custom loading screen and logo.

“It’s probably one of my favorite parts,” team coder Theodore King said. “But it’s pretty useless.”

He visited North as an eighth grader and was fascinated by the robots he saw there, he said.

“Theo’s like a programming genius,” head coach Susie Boehlke said.

The team was able to qualify for the international tournament in their first year together after taking No. 7 in a skills division at the state tournament. They’ll be assisted at the tournament by two members of another North robotics team that narrowly missed out on qualification.
From that team, Tyr, senior Eaton Cortes is glad to still be able to represent North.

“It’s a tremendous moment for the school,” he said.

He will be graduating this spring and heading to join Oregon State University’s engineering program on scholarship.

Since qualifying for worlds, the team has had to jump into a new challenge: fundraising.

The team needed to reach an overall price tag of about $12,000 to go to the event, with entrance alone costing $1,800.

Boehlke said the team went door to door, collected cans and bottles, worked concessions at Vikings games and at Old Moe’s at a Salem Capitals basketball game. They also presented at a school staff meeting to solicit donations and King’s church put on a spaghetti feed.

Boehlke secured funding from the district’s Career and Technical Education office to cover the cost of substitute teachers for the traveling coaching staff. She also went through the contacts in her phone to get donations, she said.

She was surprised to find that their combined efforts have succeeded in raising the necessary funds. All Viking teams fundraise every year to pay for the parts of their robots.

Ashley Torres Guevara, Valkyrie’s builder, has resolved to pursue mechanical engineering since joining the program. 

The senior said she didn’t expect to be able to take robotics as far as she has, nor did she imagine that she could be a mechanical engineer one day. 
She had no background in robotics when she started with the program, but was inspired by the success of the team that qualified for worlds last.

She said that in Mexico, where she’s from, they “didn’t have a lot of resources.”

She said she’s excited to compete alongside Mexican teams in St. Louis.

“If your school has the opportunity to have (a robotics program), it’s really important to invite people,” she said. “There are kids that would die to be a team like we are right now.”

Contact reporter Skeet Starr: [email protected].

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