Wiz kids from Oxford’s middle and high school robotics teams focus on making their bots the best they can be every year – and like everything else in the world, there’s an app for that.

Andrew Haselton, an OMS eighth-grader, has created a mobile application which monitors the actions and results of their competitors’ robots.

This application, called a scouting application, is created and used every year by OHS and OMS robotics teams.

The app helps the teams gather data on other teams’ robots, thereby helping the teams to strategize, perfect their own robots and eventually, select partnering teams (alliance partners), should they make it to the elimination rounds of a competition.

By the end of the season, the high school’s app collects nearly 500 lines of data, according to TORC 2137 Mentor Chris Reynolds.

But it’s not every year that the high school robotics team’s (TORC 2137) application is created by a middle school student.

He also created the same application for the middle school robotics team, TOWR 5291, for its last FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) season, which ended in December 2017.

Haselton was eager to learn the ins-and-outs of app writing and volunteered to create the OMS scouting app late last year.

Wanting to keep learning more, he volunteered to create another scouting app for TORC 2137 as soon as the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team’s season started in January.

“Andrew has been great to work with this year,” TORC 2137 Menor Phil Kimmel. “He has worked diligently.”

TORC 2137 will use Haselton’s app throughout the season.

The team generally has around six students, one per robot, “scouting” the other robots throughout each match, according to Reynolds.

The OHS scouting app, which is compatible with Android operating systems, took Haselton about a week to create using JAVA programming.

So far, Reynolds said the high school’s scouting app has been working well, adding that he’s excited to see Andrew join TORC 2137 next year.

“I think as an underclassman, Andrew has blended into the team seamlessly,” Reynolds said. “He’s always delivered his assignments on time. He’s great to work with. He has a real knack for writing the app. He’s taken on the responsibility of doing that, making changes and bringing it back as a complete project. He’ll be beneficial to our team next year because he’ll be on the high school team and he’ll already have one year of experience writing the app. Overall, he’s been a great addition to our team.”

Andrew said he hopes to continue his participation on the robotics team throughout high school.

“I definitely think it was a neat experience making these apps. I’m proud of what I’ve done and I’ve learned a lot through the process,” said Haselton.