‘OhmSchooled’ Battle Bots Team Dominates Competition, Fosters Community

‍Written By: Kaitlin Streator, BB2C Communications and Engagement Coordinator

OhmSchooled Battle Bots Team

It’s true. Robots have taken over the world (or at least the Mid-Ohio Valley) and are impacting our students. These robots are changing the way our children are communicating, socializing, and learning.

No, this isn’t some kind of Ready Player One or Wall-E world-come-to-life situation. These robots are created by Battle Bot high school teams across the Mid-Ohio Valley and are definitely impacting our students in the best ways possible.

“I’m having fun, and that’s all that really matters,” Julien Hamrick, a member of the OhmSchooled Battle Bots team, said with a big smile on his face. Hamrick had just defeated his first opponent in the first battle round at the inaugural Battle Bots Competition at the Appalachian Ohio Manufacturers Coalition. Hamrick easily could have had a much larger ego, given that his bot ended up being the champion at the end of the day, but his friendly nature and eagerness to learn something new kept him from flaunting his victory. And that goes for the other two members of the OhmSchooled Battle Bots team, Christopher Watkins and Ambrose Tribett. These three students are homeschooled—hence the play on words for their team name, OhmSchooled.

Hamrick after he won his first battle round.

Photo by Kaitlin Streator

An Ohm is the standard unit of electrical resistance; it measures how much a material or device opposes the flow of an electric current. These students certainly learned electrical engineering skills while designing, creating, and competing with these bots. They learned those skills at the BB2C Makerspace with Makerspace Director Jared Wittekind and Makerspace Content Expert Brent Smith.

“It was really awesome to coach such a great group of kids,” Wittekind said. “It's a lot of work putting together a competitive bot that could be destroyed in moments, but totally worth it to watch students get excited about developing employable skills."

Wittekind and Smith taught the team to use SolidWorks, Fusion 360, and Bambu Labs to design and create their bots so they not only followed competition guidelines but dominated the competition. Hamrick’s bot, a lifter bot he affectionately named “Jared Wittekind,” came in first place. Tribett’s bot, a horizontal spinner named “The Circuit Breaker,” came in second place, and Watkins’ bot, a vertical spinner named “Nemesis,” made it to the semifinals.

“My favorite thing was creating the bot, and the most difficult part was learning how to drive it at first. And then, when coming up with a new design, learning how to drive that too in just one day,” Watkins said. “I felt a little more confident after sparring [at the competition], and then feeling the movement a little better, and then winning. Beating that guy's bot pretty badly—I was not expecting that. I felt a little bad afterwards, but it felt good. It was super fun.”

“The fighting part, well, it's honestly pretty exhilarating,” Tribett said. “It was really fun and exciting to face other bots. This is kind of my first real project, making something as a team. I think it's worthwhile and it's fun trying to come up with ideas and using them to build something and use it and go against other people and see how it fares.”

Teams across the Mid-Ohio Valley competed at the inaugural Battle Bots Competition at Appalachian Ohio Manufacturers Coalition. Photo by Kaitlin Streator

“It was surprising, but it felt good,” Hamrick said about winning the competition. “I was just surprised that I got first place, and it was fun seeing all the other bots and just being there.”

“Just being there”—being amongst a community of students interested in something that may be a little more unconventional—is perhaps the most important takeaway from this experience for these students. It’s more than just a team, and it’s more than just a competition; it’s a fun way to apply skills outside the classroom and foster a sense of community for students.

OhmSchooled said they are looking forward to next season and will be fine-tuning their skills this summer in the hopes of maintaining the glory and honor of being Mid-Ohio Valley Battle Bot champs.

Interested in learning more about Battle Bots? Contact Jared Wittekind at jwittekind@bb2careers.org.

Get a glimpse of the bots in action by watching this video!