Savannah River Site-Sponsored Robotics Team Makes Inroads at International Competition

AIKEN, S.C. – A DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM ) contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) once again sponsored a team from Aiken High School to join an international robotics championship competition.

The M’Aiken Magic robotics team took part in the annual event in Houston, Texas, hosted by FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The educational program is offered worldwide to students in eighth through 12th grades.

In the competition, students on each team work together to build a robot from scratch. FIRST’s mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators as they develop new science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills.

“As a company, we at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) understand the importance of a STEM-based education and that many students best learn STEM-based curricula using unconventional means, such as through designing, building and operating a robot,” said Sean Alford, SRNS executive vice president and chief of administration. “We have been financial sponsors of the M’Aiken Magic program for many years.”

EM supports research and development tied to deployment of robotics and use of artificial intelligence for remote operation to tackle cleanup challenges. For example, workers last year introduced a first at EM’s Paducah Site in Kentucky — use of robot technology — to set the stage for future deactivation and remediation work at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. With the Paducah Site in the early phases of deactivating process buildings, site engineers evaluated a robot pipe crawler designed to inspect piping previously used to support uranium enrichment operations.

After winning district competitions in Anderson and Hartsville, South Carolina, M’Aiken Magic went on to the Peachtree District Championship, finishing in second place out of the 50 best teams from Georgia and South Carolina. M’Aiken Magic’s performance qualified the team to attend the world championship in Houston, Texas, and compete against more than 600 teams.

In Houston, the event was divided into eight divisions, each with about 70 teams. After each division plays two days of three-on-three style qualification matches, teams are seeded based on their performance. The top eight seeds select their alliance partners to play in the divisional tournament.

“Our team already knew it was going to be an uphill battle when we discovered that our division not only included two of the reigning world champion teams, but also the number-one ranked robot in the world from this season,” said Ambrose Wiering, who works with robots at SRS while mentoring the team. “But M’Aiken Magic has never been a team to shy away from a challenge. And after the second day of qualification matches, they ended up seeding ninth out of the 77 teams in their division.”

This meant that when the world’s top-ranked team, from the Canadian province of Ontario, picked the five-time world champion team from California to play with it in the tournament, M’Aiken Magic shifted into the eighth seed spot and became an alliance captain. M’Aiken Magic selected team Up-A-Creek robotics from Colorado and team GEMS from Michigan as alliance members.

In the double-elimination bracket, M’Aiken Magic’s alliance faced off against the top-seed alliance. In a stunning upset, the underdogs were victorious.

M’Aiken Magic fell short in its next match, falling into the lower bracket where the teammates found themselves needing a win to survive. According to Wiering, they played their hearts out and lost their last match of the season by a razor-thin margin of 190-192. The team that eliminated M’Aiken Magic went on to win the division.

“This season has been the most successful season in recent memory for our team,” said Wiering. “We hope to return to the world stage next season.”

Any students interested in joining the team can reach out to [email protected] for more information.

“I want to thank Savannah River Nuclear Solutions for their generous financial support of our program. Due to your contributions, our program has made a significant educational impact across Aiken County,” said Wiering. “Without SRNS, this amazing experience would not have been possible, much less winning a few matches against the best of the best, an unbelievable achievement for this team.”