WPI News | The Robotics War on Cancer WPI News Some people design robots that can assemble circuit boards or vacuum your floor. Gregory Fischer, PhD (above), professor of mechanical engineering and robotics engineering and director of WPI's Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Laboratory ... |
More here:
SOUTHINGTON Southington High Schools CyberKnights robotics team has completed its robots for this years steampunk-themed competition. According to designers, the machine will support a strategy that emphasizes offense.
Steampunk refers to a science fiction genre in which stories have a historical setting and the weapons used are usually steam-powered.
First Robotics teams in schools worldwide will be competing with robots designed to scoop and launch balls into the fuel tank of an airship, place gears on a tray to spin the ships rotors, then climb aboard. During some parts of the competition, the robots will be unmanned operating on programmed commands. During others, the students will control them.
Three robots from each alliance of school teams will be on the field at a time and robots can try to push others around and stop them from scoring points.
Southington High Schools first scheduled matches are set for March 4 and 5 at the Waterbury District event and April 1 and 2 in the Hartford District competition.
Jake Hayes, a junior at Southington High School, is the design lead for the CyberKnights. He explained that the team had a limited time to construct its robot. With it completed, team members built several prototype robots to test and work out bugs. Before the first competition, the team will be able to adjust its machines based on these tests.
A lot of teams play really defensively and our goal is to have a machine that is impossible to defend against, he said. We will have a rotating turret that can shoot balls with 430 degrees of motion. It locks onto reflective tape on the target tower to line up its shots.
Hayes said this will be his third year on the team. The team has been active for 20 years and last year competed in the championships in St. Louis.
We did really well last year. We knew immediately what we wanted to do and how to do it, he said. It was awesome to see how great it turned out and gave us a sense that our hard work paid off. This year, the design had a lot more size constraints; the robots will be a lot smaller this year than last year. It was a pretty rigorous build but I think well do well.
Chris Bonomi, also a junior at SHS, is the lead programmer for the team.
This year the robots will need to be more accurate on turns versus the straight-line movements last year, he said. We need to calculate the velocity of our turns and it can be difficult to get them perfect but I feel we will get it done good.
Bonomi said that being a part of the CyberKnights program has been beneficial to him socially and academically.
I started programming in eighth grade and the advanced knowledge I received through this program has got me at an almost college-ready level, he said. It also helped me to open up and be more social. I used to be very shy.
Natiya Washer, who captains the CyberKnights team along with fellow senior Nick Rappi, said she is also on the electrical team.
I am really excited for this year, she said. There are so many ways to score points. Having a fifth drive-team member who is sitting on the field inside the airship will be very different.
Washer also described how much the robotics team has benefited her.
Being a part of this team has helped me tremendously with my people skills, she said. It is like running a business; you have to have good communication or nothing gets done. I also learned time management on top of the physical skills.
Sandra Brino, the team mentor, said that, due to the success of the CyberKnights, other teams have contacted them for advice. On Friday, they spoke to a team from Turkey and on Saturday they will be advising a team from India that is just starting the robotics program.
It is very flattering, said Washer. It is the first time Ive encountered another team asking for help. We fully support the expansion of the robotics program. We are very excited.
Brian M. Johnson can be reached at 860-973-1806 or bjohnson@bristolpress.com.
Read more:
CyberKnights ready for action in district robotics events - The Bristol ... - Bristol Press
Jasmine Chrisp is a member of Mount Parans Robotic team 7373 that just won the Think Award. Jasmine and her team will be moving on to Semi-Regionals in March.
Jasmine is comfortable hanging with the boys. She is the only high school girl in Robotics and Engineering, but she is busting open doors for the young women who are following in her footsteps. It is one of her passions to spread the word about STEAM and FIRST among young female students. She wishes to inspire, and encourage other girls to explore the opportunities that Robotics and Engineering can open up to females. She has participated in Women in Technology events, and Girls First. She has volunteered her time to mentor fifth- grade girls in a Girls Using Engineering and Science Skills club.
Jasmine is also a girl scout. Her Gold Award proposal of creating a free curriculum to inspire and encourage girls to learn STEAM skills, investigate STEAM careers, and participate in STEAM projects and competitions was approved. The Gold Award is the highest achievement within the Girl Scouts, earned by Senior and Ambassador Girl Scouts. Only 5.4 percent of eligible Girl Scouts successfully earn the Gold Award. The Mount Paran Christian Robotics team will be helping Jasmine to fulfill her project.
There is a great deal of evidence of Jasmine reaching out to help show students the importance of a STEAM program. She mentored a kindergartner during an Hour of Code event and made the lead page of Cobb in Focus magazines article on the use of 3-D printers in Cobb County schools.
Jasmine shows initiative and dependability. She is in her third year on the team and her teammates have chosen her to be the Business Manager. Jasmine has created a business plan for the team which includes an introduction to the team, an explanation of the team endeavor, budget histories and projections for the upcoming season, and an invitation to join the team in its quest. Jasmine manages a $28,000 budget and every penny is accounted for.
Jasmines list of accomplishments is impressive. She has a 4.42 GPA. She has an ACT composite of 29. She has taken Honors and AP classes, and won awards for Engineering and Math.
Jasmine passed the three hour Certified SolidWorks Associate exam. Passing this exam in 3D CAD Solid Modeling Software provides her with an industry-level certification.
Last summer, Jasmine completed a six-week intensive internship through the Technology Association of Georgia as an Input Sensor Circuit Card Lead with the Georgia Tech Research Institutes Rapid Prototype Program in the Engineering Design Process. Jasmine and 15 other high school students were trained in a mentor-based program designed to inspire and inform student career choices in STEAM as well as encourage, equip and reinforce skills in innovation, problem solving, leadership, decision-making and teamwork. By completing this program, Jasmine received GTRI certified training in a variety of areas. She was also a finalist for Tell Your Story, a video production, and was named a finalist for the Horizon Pinnacle Award.
Because of all of Jasmines accomplishments, she has been nominated for Mount Paran Christian Schools Executive Internship Program. Jasmine has been selected to work with Dr. Robert Funk at Georgia Tech Research Institute of Technologys Aerospace, Transportation and Advanced Systems Laboratory, completing a year-long internship in aerospace acoustics during her senior year.
When I asked Jasmine what had attracted her to robotics, she said that it is something that has always fascinated her. She wanted to start in middle school, but at the time that was not an option and she was told that she would have to wait. I also asked her what skills she has learned from Robotics, and she said, Robotics has improved my public speaking skills, and my ability to make technical presentations.
I asked her if she minded being the only girl, and she replied that it just felt normal. Jasmine Chrisp is anything but normal and this will not be the last time that we hear about her excellence.
Jennifer Bonn is a freelance writer and Kennesaw resident who teaches at Mount Paran Christian School. She has been published in several magazines, and has published a book titled Stay Away from the Girls Bathroom, A Teachers Guide. It is available from Deeds Publishing at http://www.deedspublishing.com.
See original here:
Mount Paran Christian student is a trailblazer in Robotics, STEAM - MDJOnline.com
You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service.
We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.
While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.
We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers
We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.
We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.
We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.
We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.
Read this article:
Tech firms keep expanding 'Robotics Row,' Pittsburgh's mini Silicon ... - Tribune-Review
Badger Robotics team drivers Kaeden Hietala and Kennedy Truscinski look out at the model arena as they drive their team robot in a practice session with the Greenbush-Middle River Robotics team at DRB Fabrication in Greenbush on February 19. At its February 13 meeting, the Badger School Board approved designating no more than $4000 to build a 60-foot long wall to create a more conducive space in the Badger Bus Garage for the Badger Robotics team to call home.
At its February 13 meeting, the Badger School Board approved granting the district permission to designate no more than $4000 to build a 60-foot long wall to create a more conducive space in the Badger Bus Garage for the Badger Robotics team to call home.
Making this motion, board member Carol Rhen added that she thinks its prudent to post this project on the school website and to count on board members word of mouth, both coming at no cost to the district, to call out for bids on this project. Superintendent Tom Jerome agreed to post this info on the district website, including a deadline for response.
This request came after the robotics team moved from working in the Badger Industrial Arts Room and into what Jerome termed dead space, used for odds and ends, in front of three fleet vehicles located in the Badger Bus Garage. The team would like this space converted to provide a secure area and conducive atmosphere for them to work in the winter months.
To improve the insulation of this space, Jerome asked the board if the district could pursue this project, totaling, according to Allen Monsrud Construction, $3300. The district at that time hadnt yet asked for any bids outside this one. Speaking with Badger Transportation Director Tim Berger, Jerome said Berger told him he was fine with repurposing this space if the students were going to use it.
Speaking of students, board member Hauger asked if industrial arts students could build this wall. He at first made an initial motion to appropriate $3000 towards the project, have the district meet with Badger Industrial Arts teacher Mike Coltom to see if his students could do the project, and if not, to still go through with the project.
Board Chairperson Jamie Isane questioned whether having students build this wall could be more trouble than its worth, being the district has to deal with building codes. Badger Dean of Students Stacey Warne added that the district isnt offering a construction class until next fall. This initial motion made by Hauger didnt move forward.
Jerome then added that if the board wanted this wall built relatively soon, it could move forward with the project, or, if not, could wait until the fall. He did add that the build season is coming to an end soon February 21 to be exact.
Board member Jeramy Swenson, a Badger Robotics team mentor, told the board that if it approved Allen Monsrud to do the project, Monsrud could have the project done that Wednesday (February 15).
Hauger responded by saying he would like to be fair and ask for bids from others, realizing it could set the project back. Jerome then brought up the idea of calling out for bids on the school website.
Isane understood the idea of being fair to all, but didnt think they would see many differences in bids on a project of this size. Hauger then asked Swenson his opinion in terms of how imperative it was to have the project done now.
Swenson said he would like to see the project done now to provide the robotics team a home. As of February 21, the project hadnt yet began.
To see more from this meeting, read the February 22 issue of The Tribune. To find out more about the Badger Robotics and the Greenbush-Middle River Robotics teams, read an upcoming issue of The Tribune.
See the original post here:
Badger board approves wall for robotics team space - East Grand Forks Exponent
February 24, 2017 at 3:35 pm by Max Chen
As technology growth continues to pick up speed, robotics and automation could usher in the next industrial revolution. Investors can also tap into the potential explosive growth in the robotics space through a targeted exchange traded fund strategy.
Robotics is a global mega trend that most investors are not positioned for, William E. Studebaker, President, CIO, and Managing Partner of ROBO Global, told ETF Trends in an email.
The robotics and automation sub-sector is still in its nascent stages, which leaves a lot more room to run. For instance, there are 17,000 logistics warehouse in U.S. and less than 1% are automated, Studebaker told Nasdaq.
We think the investment opportunity is enormous, Studebaker told Nasdaq. We think we are actually in the first inning of the baseball game where the players arent even on the field yet.
Unlike most other products and services, robotics can have its hands in multiple sectors and areas around the world, opening up an even larger opportunity for growth
The important thing to recognize about robotics is the foundational technology that is being applied to all markets, all geographies, all industries, and it is all happening now, Studebaker told CNBC. Some may buy it as a niche, but we think it is much broader than that.
To tap into this rising integration and demand of robotics in various industries, investors can take a look at the ROBOGlobal Robotics & Automation Index ETF (NasdaqGM: ROBO), which provides exposure to global companies engaged in the business of robotics-related or automation-related industries. Robotics- or automation-related products and services include any technology, service or device that supports, aids or contributes to any type of robot, robotic action or automation system process, software or management.
ROBO follows a two-tiered, equal-weighted system that ensures the strategy provides diversified exposure to a broad global ecosystem of new and enabling technologies as well as established automation/robotic providers. Specifically, the ETF includes a 60% tilt toward non-bellwether robotics with growing revenue contributions and a 40% tilt toward bellwether robotics companies that are well-established in the space.
The robotics ETFs portfolio may also provide exposure to companies with sustainable growth opportunities, as the underlying ROBO Global Robotics & Automation Index has exhibited attractive sales growth, EBITDA growth and earnings-per-share growth. The underlying index has even outperformed the broader technology and S&P 500 index since the 2008 financial downturn.
If youre looking at the underlying characteristics of the portfolio, these companies have materially higher earnings growth, Studebaker said.
For more information on the tech sector, visit our technology category.
Continue reading here:
A Robotics ETF to Tap into a Growing Global Trend - ETF Trends
Belleville News-Democrat | O'Fallon robotics team qualifies for state tech tournament Belleville News-Democrat During regional competition, Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois robotics team, OOPS! Robotics, qualified for the Illinois FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) State Tournament, as well as won the tournament's Connect Award for the ties they have built with the ... |
See the original post:
O'Fallon robotics team qualifies for state tech tournament - Belleville News-Democrat
AUGUSTA While some of their classmates were enjoying the February break relaxing on the ski slopes or at the beach, members of the Hall-Dale High School robotics team were hard at work in the lower level of the Ballard Center putting the finishing touches on their robot for this seasons competition.
We probably did several thousand man hours since January, said William Fahy, a senior and one of the teams captains. The first competition will be held in Worcester, Massachusetts, early next month before the team participates in the FIRST New England District Pine Tree Regional on March 30 and April 1 in Lewiston.
Delta Prime Robotics spent most of Tuesday, known in the high school robotics world as Stop Build Day, working on the robot until midnight. The 15-member team worked on programming, electrical design and final building of the robot in their space at the Ballard Center the former MaineGeneral Medical Center building on East Chestnut Street which the team uses at no cost. The space features several large rooms, including a full body shop and a 3-D printer.
This years game, called Steamworks, requires teams to build a robot using specific guidelines provided by the sports governing body. During the first 30 seconds of each match, the robot must perform certain tasks autonomously.
Robotics team members from Hall-Dale High School test their robots maneuverability Tuesday at the Ballard Center in Augusta. The students are participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition. Kennebec Journal/Elise Klysa
Lead mentor Karen Giles said the games object is to gather gears that are loaded onto the robot by a human player. The robot then must take the gears and place them onto spots on an airship in the center of the playing field. Giles said there is also fuel giant neon yellow whiffle balls that can be loaded into the robot and shot or dumped into a steam boiler.
The robot has to have speed and precision and aiming capabilities, Giles said. You get extra ranking points for the qualifying round based on how many you get in the boiler.
In the last 30 seconds of the match, the robot must drive itself to a hanging rope, pull itself up to about 5 feet off the ground, contact a touch pad and hang in place until a buzzer sounds. The team is using a Kevlar rope that can hold hundreds of pounds instead of the rope provided by the tournament organizers.
Fahy, one of the teams lead programmers, said getting the robot, which doesnt have a name yet, to do several complicated tasks and movements at the same time is a challenge.
The robot cant learn anything just by putting a camera there and seeing stuff, because it has to process the image, Fahy said. We have to put it through a bunch of different layers of processing.
Hall-Dale High School students, all members of Delta Prime Robotics, huddle around their robotic entry Tuesday at the Ballard Center in Augusta with mentor Karen Giles, second from right, in order to finish their work before the competition deadline. Students are, from left, Garmin Dion, Eli Pahn, Michael Crochere, Ean Smith, Bryce Bradgon, Alicia Warm and, at far right, team business and coding captain William Fahy. Kennebec Journal/Elise Klysa
Senior Anna Schaab, who designed the teams logo and handles its social media outreach, said the robot uses the camera and an encoder that measures how far the wheels have moved and other real-time data.
We can see how far weve gone and where were aiming, Schaab said. These are difficult things were trying to do.
Giles son graduated last year after serving as one of the team leaders during the competition season, but she said she decided to stick around as lead mentor because she loves working with the students and seeing how their minds work. Giles, an artist and former therapeutic horse riding instructor, has made robotics her career as director of the Robotics Institute of Maine, whose mission is to inspire youth to gain a new perspective on science and technology by providing opportunities and resources for robotics programs.
They are learning so much more than robots, Giles said. They learn how to work with other people. They make friends from all over New England and they learn the soft skills employers would look for.
Giles said she works with a lot of employers who are looking not only for the technological skills these students possess, but also for people who work well with others, who can work as a team and who can jump in and help when something needs to get done.
Gracious professionalism is something stressed by New Hampshire-based FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Delta Prime won two gracious professionalism awards last season, and Fahy said helping other teams and helping each other is almost as important as the competition.
Everyone is there to compete and show that their robot is going to win, but its competition with cooperation, Fahy said. At any given event, youll find teams helping each other.
Jason Pafundi can be contacted at 621-5663 or at:
[emailprotected]
Read more here:
Hall-Dale High School robotics team prepares for competition season - Press Herald
It's here that students burn hours of their time designing, building and driving their bots in preparation for robotics competitions.
And soon they'll be put to the test. On Saturday, at the Nordby Trades Center at Mitchell Technical Institute, the South Dakota State VRC tournament featuring 31 teams from across the state will be held. And five Mitchell teams from the middle and high school are gearing up for the tournament, looking to earn their place at the top of the leader board, and potentially a ticket to the world competition.
Before the world competition, nationals takes place. But for three of Mitchell's teams, they don't have to worry, as they qualified for the national competition in Council Bluffs, Iowa, earlier in the season. But if they are to win the state competition, they would earn a spot at the world tournament in Kentucky.
Three teams is the most any school can send to nationals each year, according to Josh Renken, the assistant tournament director and supervisor for the middle school teams.
The opening ceremony of the tournament will begin at 9:20 a.m. Saturday in the Nordby Trades Center at MTI. The elimination and final rounds are expected to start around 3:30 p.m.
Renken watched his students since they began building last spring. Every year after the world competition, the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (REC) unveils the new "game." This is the challenge and task the teams must complete with a robot they designed.
"No two robots are the same," Renken said. "Once they know what the game is, they'll decide what the best design is."
This year's game which is back-and-forth type game, Renken said requires the students manning the robots to move game pieces, such as cubes and other objects over a fence. This could be done by tossing the objects over the fence, or underneath.
And it's up to the student to decide how the robot maneuvers and places the objects on the other side. For many of Mitchell's teams, they went with the tossing idea, rather than a pusher-like robot.
The robots evolve as the season continues, as students work to improve the bots any way they can. Each team keeps an engineering notebook from day one, that provides a day-to-day outlook along with a list of failures and successes.
This allows students to perfect their robot's design, and hopefully, win the rounds they compete.
And for some students, this includes a lot of altering of the robot, sometimes completely changing their original idea.
"The robots evolve over the season," Renken said. "They don't look anything like they did when they started."
With this weekend's tournament only a day away, Renken said he's confident in how his students will perform, and he looks forward to see what other schools designed.
The winner of Saturday's competition will earn a trip to the VEX Robotics World Championships, April 19-25 in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to this, the three Mitchell teams will participate in the U.S. Open Robotics Championships April 4-8 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with more than 200 other teams from around the country.
Here is the original post:
Mitchell students gear up for state robotics competition - Daily Republic
RCS students show robotics Millicent Martin Emery / Palladium-Item
Richmond Community Schools elementary students demonstrate robotics to school board members.(Photo: Millicent Martin Emery / Palladium-Item)Buy Photo
Robotics are invogue when it comes to kids' learning.
Students from Charles, Fairview and Starr Elementary schoolsreceived applause Wednesday night as theydemonstrated a robotics competitionduring the Richmond Community Schoolsboard meeting.
Students build the robots and thecompetition field, and during an event, the field and robots can only be touched by student hands. Theymust understand how to operate and fix the robotwithout the help of coaches.
Their teachers and principals described how the teamshave spent many hours after school this year learning and attending competitions.Next year, the students will begin to learn coding and programming.
"It was very entertaining and intriguing to see the skill set those kids have developed with that," RCS Superintendent Todd Terrill said.
RELATED:
Richmond High School Principal Rae Woolpy said she was pleased to see the elementary robotics teams' enthusiasm for their work, and she would like them to show their skills to RHS students.
Starr's team includes coaches Melissa Jordan, Krystal Mathews, Chris Burch and Sam Thomas and studentsTiara Hampton,Paige Jones,Robert Ott,Christian Plumley,Arely Garcia-Alavez andChase Bradburn.
Fairview's team is coached by Amy Vance andassistantBradyn Williams. Their team includesEthan Zimmerman, Telesforo Ortiz,Jacqueline Cartas,Logan Brewer,Allison Tucker,Kiely Kurtz,Trinity Drew andAlex Ruiz-Garcia.
The Charles Chargers Robotics Team is coached byBrandi Jackson and assistant Amber Hall. Their students areAlex Ervin,Matthew Farlow,Ethan Farrar,Emma French,Brayden Haller,Jacob Lindahl,Pushkar Mishra,Sophia Reising,Hannah Stearley andOzzy Witte.
Robotics and coding are becoming popular skills for students to learn.
The Innovation Center in Richmond will offer itsGreenhouse Coding Academy, starting next week, for the first 12 ninth-graders who register.Classes take place Monday evenings from Feb. 27 to April 10 at814 E.Main St.
The free academy is taught by retired Earlham computer science professor John Howell and community computer coder volunteers whohelp students write their own computer game.
The course opens with a career fair featuring local higher education institutions. Career fair demonstrations include 3D printer, graphic designing, and robotics activities.
Registration is available at http://www.richmondinnovates.com. For more information, call (765) 962-8151
Richmond High School is trying something new to draw in more underclassmen to attend this Saturday's Snowball Dance.
In addition to nominating king and queen candidates, who are seniors, students were able to nominate underclassmen to be named princes and princesses. This year, nominations were made through an online program called Canvas that Richmond schools arebeginning to use.
At the dance, students willchoose a king and queen as well as aprince and princess from the freshmen, sophomore and junior classes to be crowned that night.
This year's king and queen court includes Adrian Calderon, Zach Honeycutt, Chris Sanchez, Cole Shroyer, Blake York, Megan Crass, Nicole Goddard, Paige Hazelbaker, Taylor Jackson and Kelli McCurdy.
Members of the prince and princess court include Derick Casiano, Lucas Harrod, Ike Khamis, Katie Butler, Braxtyn Hurley, Nia Wright,Isaiah Cox, Phillip Hobbs, Ryan Hollingsworth, Suniah Parsons, Megan Quinn, Peyton VanMiddlesworth,Hunter Burton, Brandton Thomas, Rickie Wedlow, Brianna Fisher, Jazman Moore and Zada Valentine.
The Indiana Department of Transportationis inviting high school or college art classes/programs to paint an INDOT snow plow blade with original artwork to represent their school.
The deadline for the Paint the Plow project for the Greenfield region is March 15.
In addition to being seen inservice during the winter,blades may be used at events within the schools community to enhance public awareness, promote safety and foster greater appreciation of both INDOT and the schools art program.
Find details atwww.in.gov/indot/3427.htm.
Millicent Martin Emery covers education and family life for the Palladium-Item. Follow her onFacebookandTwitter.
Read or Share this story: http://pinews.co/2lATIr6
View original post here:
Notebook: RCS robotics students show off skills - Palladium-Item
Thursday, February 23, 2017
JANESVILLELegos, those colorful building blocks found in toy boxes around the world, are in the National Toy Hall of Fame for good reason: They're simple enough for young children to play with, but they also have advanced applications as educational tools.
It's this second way of playing with Legos that will attract 36 teams of young programmers from around the state to Parker High School on Sunday, Feb. 26, when they compete in Wisconsin FIRST Lego League's state robotics championship.
The contest is a chance for the kids to show off their programming and problem-solving skills.
For their families, it's an opportunity to show kids that playing with Legos could eventually lead to a high-paying job in technology or engineering.
Teams of middle schoolers from all over the state are coming, and Janesville schools will be well represented.
Here's how a Lego robotics competition works: Students are given a themethis year it was animal alliesand get a game board and a Lego robotics kit.
From there, the students have to build and program their robots to perform tasks on the game board. For example, the robot might have to move a shark tank or tip something over to feed an animal. The more tasks a team can get through on a game board, the higher they score.
The morning session is devoted to teams presenting their projects and discussing their robot designs with the judges. Students are also given a challenge to test their ability to work together and solve problems.
In the afternoon, teams take their robots to the competition tables to see how well they perform the particular tasks for which they're programmed.
Both the morning and the afternoon events are scored, and winners will advance to the world championship in Detroit in mid-April.
Last updated: 3:41 pm Thursday, February 23, 2017
2017 GazetteXtra, a division of Bliss Communications, Inc.
View post:
Parker to host Lego League state robotics competition - Janesville Gazette
Photo: Getty Images
In January, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliamentput forward a draft report urging the creation and adoption of EU-wide rules to corral the myriad issues arising from the widespread use of robots and AIa development, it says, is poised to unleash a new industrial revolution.
Its an interesting read, and a valiant effort to get a handle on how to standardize and regulate the ever-expanding robot universe: drones, industrial robots, care robots, medical robots, entertainment robots, robots in farmingyou name it, theyre all inthere.
Beginning with Frankensteins monster, Pragues golem, and Karel apeks robot and ending with a code of ethics for robotics engineers and some daunting lists of shoulds for robot designers and end users, the 22-page worry catalog toggles between practical concerns about liability, accountability, and safetywhos going to pay when a robot or a self-driving car has an accident?and far-ranging ones about when robots will need to be designated electronic persons, and how we will ensure that their creators make them good ones.
The practical concerns addressed include a call for the creation of a European agency for robotics and artificial intelligence to support the European Commission in its regulation- and legislation-making efforts. Definitions and classifications of robots and smart robots need to be detailed, and a robot registration system described. Interoperability and access to code and intellectual property rights are addressed. Even the impact of robotics on the workforce and the economy are flagged for oversight.
The electronic persons discussion, tucked halfway through the report, caught everyones attentionperhaps because its much more fun to catastrophize about HAL 9000 and Skynet than it is to ponder robot insurance requirements. And because personhoodwhat it legally means to be recognized as a personissuch a loaded topic.
Mady Delvaux, a Luxembourg member of the EP and the reports author, attempted to clarify the designation of what a limited electronic personality would be, saying that it would be comparable to the standing that corporations have as legal persons, making it possible for them to conduct business, limit liability, and sue or be sued for damages.
But we havent finished addressing legal definitions of personhood for women, children, and higher-order animals like chimpanzees yet. Are we really ready to take on robot e-personhood?
I called Joanna Bryson, reader in the department of computer science at the University of Bath, in England, and a working member of the IEEE Ethically Aligned Design project, to ask her what she thought, having just read the Reddit Science Ask Me Anythingshe did about the future of AI and robotics. Her response? As soon as you put the word person in the draft, youre probably in trouble.
She told me about Australian law professor S.M.Solaimans article Legal Personality of Robots, Corporations, Idols and Chimpanzees: A Quest for Legitimacy,which argues that corporations are legal persons but AIs and chimpanzees arent. Legal persons must know and be able to claim their rights: They must be able to assert themselves as members of a society, which is why nonhuman animals (andsome incapacitated humans), and artifacts like AIs should not, according to Solaiman, be considered legal persons.
But then Bryson said something I had not considered. Since robots are ownedthey are in a sense our machine slaveswe can choose not to build robotsthat would mind being owned. We arent obliged to build robots that we end up feeling obliged to, says Bryson. So instead of assuming that an ethically challenged future saturated with sentient machines is inevitable, we could choose to maintain agency over the machines we are building and defy the technological imperative. Could we do it? Or are we so in thrall to the notion of creating artificial life, monsters, and golems, that its irresistible?
This article appears in the March 2017 print issue as Do We Have to Build Robots That Need Rights?
Original post:
Building Robots Without Ever Having to Say You're Sorry - IEEE ... - IEEE Spectrum
CAMBRIDGE, MAMidway through a routine laboratory session Wednesday, sources say MIT graduate student Evan Ward casually remarked What if we try this? before making a small change to a robotic device that will one day eliminate 30 percent of the U.S. workforce.
Wards off-the-cuff suggestion to slightly adjust a single component of the machine will reportedly result in nearly 50 million jobs being made expendable over the next two decades, wreaking havoc on the economy and giving rise to historic levels of unemployment that will persist for generations.
Maybe this will work, the 24-year-old said out of mere curiosity, oblivious to the fact that the tiny modification he had suggested making to the actuator circuit of a robotic arm will result in Americas most vital industries laying off hundreds of thousands of workers every month. I dont know, though. I guess it doesnt matter.
What do you guys think? he added.
Current projections indicate the little tweak, which reportedly seemed so insignificant to Ward that he almost didnt even bother mentioning it, will lead in time to the complete disappearance of millions of jobs in manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, mining, construction, food processing, and telecommunications.
Reports indicate that the grad students spontaneous suggestion involved adjusting the servo motor of an industrial robot by less than 3 millimeters, a modification that will forever change the lives of Americans as it renders hundreds of entire occupations obsolete and makes the existing skills and education of many workers all but useless in an utterly transformed economy.
It couldnt hurt to try anyway, Ward said of his idea, whose applications will drastically cut overhead for U.S. companies, lead to higher returns for shareholders, and cast thousands of the nations working- and middle-class communities into abject poverty. What do we have to lose?
Wards spur-of-the-moment recommendation to alter the mechanism just a smidge will reportedly cause millions to lose their homes, become unable to support their families, and never again find work in their fields of expertise, events that sources say will result in the creation of a greatly expanded underclass that will remain a permanent feature of American society.
Lets give it a shot, said professor Barbara Simmons, who oversees the lab and who will eventually join the growing number of jobless Americans once her students innovation causes her engineering curriculum to become irrevocably outdated. Hey, maybe well learn something at least.
At press time, however, another student in the robotics lab had stumbled upon a groundbreaking technology that, before Wards discovery has a chance to devastate the economy, will inadvertently wipe out the entire human race.
See the original post here:
GIF
A popular approach to designing robots that can navigate a world built for living creatures is to simply copy Mother Natures designs. But while trying to improve how a six-legged robot walks, researchers at the cole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne actually found a faster way for six-legged creatures to get around.
While many vertebrates are able to run quickly and with minimal ground contact, six-legged insects take a different approach to speed. They use whats called a tripod gait, which means that when scurrying across flat terrain, they always have at least three legs touching the groundtwo on one side, and one on the other.
The researchers at EPFL, who also worked with the University of Lausanne, were curious to know if the tripod gait really was the fastest way for a six-legged creature to get around. So they pressed the fast-forward button on evolution and used a series of computer simulations and real-life experiments to see if there was a more efficient alternative. They eventually discovered that a bipod gait, where a six-legged creature has only two legs on the ground at any one time, allowed it to move faster, without any hardware upgrades.
But lets not a point a finger and laugh at Mother Nature just yet. While the bipod approach to six-legged running works great on flat terrain, the simulations the researchers ran also revealed that the more traditional tripod approach is actually better for insects who use sticky feet to walk on walls, ceilings, and other surfaces where theyre constantly fighting gravity.
When crawling through a jungle where the terrain changes from inch to inch, it makes sense that insects would use an evolved approach to getting around that allows them to navigate every possible hazardas opposed to one that prioritizes speed. But since the robots humans design are usually created and customized for very specific tasks, this discovery shows that copying Mother Nature verbatim isnt always the best approach. Sometimes, we can improve on it.
[EPFL via Robotics Trends]
Read the original post:
Robotics Researchers Discovered a Better Way For Insects to Walk - Gizmodo
MESA - Students at Mesa's Westwood High School are gearing up for a big robotics competition, and some of the teens say they never knew they had a passion for engineering or high-tech learning until they joined the club.
The robotics program is part of the school's STEM program, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
"I never thought I would be even into engineering," said junior Jill Barcena. "If I hadn't joined robotics, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to grow in this way."
The students design and build their own robots. They learn about problem solving, creativity, teamwork and getting prepared for big tech jobs.
"We can get certificates that are certifying us to work in places like Intel and Boeing," said junior Nic Peters.
The program already has big name sponsors like Boeing and Cox Communications. The instructor says it's a great program because there is no one right answer to a problem. The kids work in all kinds of ways to solve problems.
"I think the kids you see in here are the kids you are going to see in the workforce and kids who the economy is going to be built on in the future," said robotics instructor Tom Saxon.
More here:
Mesa robotics class helps students find passion for technology - KNXV - ABC15 Arizona
Why it matters to you
Exoskeletons promise to make us stronger and faster, but most of them remain bulky pieces of kit. Roam Robotics has created a lightweight alternative.
There are a number of companies in existence developing cutting-edge exoskeletons that will help us perform feats of strength or endurance beyond what our bodies can otherwise manage.
But while a lot of these creations are bulky, expensive, and rely on electromechanical components to work, San Francisco-based Roam Robotics is taking a different approach.Instead, its focusing on designs that are largely constructed out of plastic and high-strength fabrics, but which nonetheless dont give up too much in terms of power compared to other designs.
More: A robotic exoskeleton powered this disabled U.S. athlete to a prize in the Robot Olympics
We are making a new type of exoskeleton that is primarily made of plastics and fabrics instead of the metal and motors that make up traditional devices, Roam Robotics co-founder Tim Swift told Digital Trends. The goal is to make devices that can dramatically reduce system cost and weight without sacrificing overall performance. The thing that is exciting, though, is that it creates a pathway to what has always been the dream for exoskeletons: a lightweight device that regular people can get access to and use in their everyday life. Early work has shown capabilities well beyond any device to date such as making people run faster and for less energy.
Swift said that the resulting exoskeleton could be useful in a number of everyday scenarios such ashelping a person recover from a knee injury, lift heavy objects, or simply maintain the ability to go on long hikes.
Roam Roboticshas been investigating the underlying technology for several years now, and Swift noted that the plan at present is have the first devices commercially available in 2018.
The best way to interact with our technology is to reach out to us on our website and tell us what you are interested in them for, as we are always looking for people to evaluate early devices during development, he said. Also, as we progress towards commercial release, we will be looking to complete early pilot trials where we plan to draw from interested parties.
Follow this link:
Roam Robotics' lightweight, affordable exoskeleton designed for everyday folks - Digital Trends
People have been exploring the Earth since ancient timestraversing deserts, climbing mountains, and trekking through forests. But there is one ecological realm that hasnt yet been well explored: the oceans. To date, just 5 percent of Earths oceans have been seen by human eyes or by human-controlled robots.
Thats quickly changing thanks to advancements in robotic technologies. In particular, a new class of self-controlled robots that continually adapt to their surroundings is opening the door to undersea discovery. These autonomous, curious machines can efficiently search for specific undersea features such as marine organisms and landscapes, but they are also programmed to keep an eye out for other interesting things that may unexpectedly pop up.
Curious robotswhich can be virtually any size or shapeuse sensors and cameras to guide their movements. The sensors take sonar, depth, temperature, salinity, and other readings, while the cameras constantly send pictures of what theyre seeing in compressed, low-resolution form to human operators. If an image shows something different than the feature a robot was programmed to explore, the operator can give the robot the okay to go over and check out in greater detail.
The field of autonomous underwater robots is relatively young, but the curious-robots exploration method has already lead to some pretty interesting discoveries, says Hanumant Singh, an ocean physicist and engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. In 2015, he and a team of researchers went on an expedition to study creatures living on Hannibal Seamount, an undersea mountain chain off Panamas coast. They sent a curious robot down to the seabed from their manned submersiblea modern version of the classic Jacques Cousteau yellow submarineto take photos and videos and collect living organisms on several dives over the course of 21 days.
On the expeditions final dive, the robot detected an anomaly on the seafloor, and sent back several low-resolution photos of what looked like red fuzz in a very low oxygen zone. The robots operators thought what was in the image might be interesting, so they sent it over to the feature to take more photos, says Singh. Thanks to the curious robot, we were able to tell that these were crabsa whole swarming herd of them.
The team used submarines to scoop up several live crabs, which were later identified through DNA sequencing as Pleuroncodes planipes, commonly known as pelagic red crabs, a species native to Baja California. Singh says it was extremely unusual to find the crabs so far south of their normal range and in such a high abundance, gathered together like a swarm of insects. Because the crabs serve as an important food source for open-ocean predators in the eastern Pacific, the researchers hypothesize the crabs may be an undetected food source for predators at the Hannibal Seamount, too.
When autonomous robot technology first developed 15 years ago, Singh says he and other scientists were building robots and robotics software from scratch. Today a variety of programming interfacessome of which are open-sourceexist, making scientists jobs a little easier. Now they just have to build the robot itself, install some software, and fine-tune some algorithms to fit their research goals.
While curious robot software systems vary, Girdhar says some of the basics remain the same. All curious robots need to collect data, and they do this with their ability to understand different undersea scenes without supervision. This involves teaching robots to detect a given class of oceanic features, such as different types of fish, coral, or sediment. The robots must also be able to detect anomalies in context, following a path that balances their programmed mission with their own curiosity.
This detection method is different from traditional undersea robots, which are preprogrammed to follow just one exploration path and look for one feature or a set of features, ignoring anomalies or changing oceanic conditions. One example of a traditional robot is Jason, a human-controlled ROV, or remotely operated vehicle, used by scientists at Woods Hole to study the seafloor.
Marine scientists see curious robots as a clear path forward. To efficiently explore and map our oceans, intelligent robots with abilities to deliberate sensor data and make smart decisions are a necessity, says yvind degrd, a marine archaeologist and Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems at Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
degrd uses robots to detect and investigate shipwrecks, often in places too dangerous for human divers to explorelike the Arctic. Other undersea scientists in fields like biology and chemistry are starting to use curious robots to do things like monitor oil spills and searching for invasive species.
Compared to other undersea robots, degrd says, autonomous curious robots are best suited to long-term exploration. For shorter missions in already explored marine environments, its possible to preprogram robots to cope with predictable situations, says degrd. Yet, for longer missions, with limited prior knowledge of the environment, such predictions become increasingly harder to make. The robot must have deliberative abilities or intelligence that is robust enough for coping with unforeseen events in a manner that ensures its own safety and also the goals of the mission.
One big challenge is sending larger amounts of data to human operators in real time. Water inhibits the movement of electromagnetic signals such as GPS, so curious robots can only communicate in small bits of data. degrd says to overcome this challenge, scientists are looking for ways to optimize data processing.
According to Singh, one next step in curious robot technology is teaching the robots to work in tandem with drones to give scientists pictures of sea ice from both above and below. Another is teaching the robots to deal with different species biases. For example, the robots frighten some fish and attract othersand this could cause data anomalies, making some species appear less or more abundant than they actually are.
degrd adds that new developments in robotics programs could allow even scientists without a background in robotics the opportunity to reap the benefits of robotics research. I hope we will see more affordable robots that lower the threshold for playing with them and taking risks, he says. That way it will be easier to find new and innovative ways to use them.
Read the original post:
The 'Curious' Robots Searching for the Ocean's Secrets - The Atlantic
MATTHEW CATTIN
Last updated16:54, February 23 2017
MATTHEW CATTIN/FAIRFAX NZ
Isaac Kirkwood with his robot Janet.
A four-wheeled late night creation dubbed 'Janet' has beaten the best bots in the country.
The robot, built by Orewa College student Isaac Kirkwood, took out a national senior robotics championship at ACG Strathallan, after topping a series of challenges.
Facing competitors from eight schools around the country, the year 12 student put Janet through the paces with several rounds of manual and autonomous tasks.
The competition demands "on the fly adaptations" throughout, Isaac says, and to find an advantage, the robots have to be reprogrammed and rebuilt between rounds.
READ MORE *Feilding High School robotics team recognised at world champs in USA *Robotics competition hardly VEXing for Manawatu students
"You can't just sit there twiddling your thumbs," he says.
All of Janet's functions, from the sensitivity of the controller joystick to the range of its movements, were programmed by Isaac using computer coding.
Throughout the day, Isaac - sometimes in an alliance with rival schools - outscored his competitors, and came away with the win.
Orewa College science teacher Nish Rabeendran says that despite the win, the school was very close to not entering the competition this year, due to its timing.
Scheduled to line up with schools in the USA, the competition date meant students have to dedicate time in their holidays.
When all of Orewa College's robotics team but Isaac pulled out due to other commitments, Rabeendran says he figured he would give it up, and enter a team in 2018.
But Isaac wasn't to be dissuaded.
Leaving things until last minute, Isaac spent much of the evening before competition day watching movies with a friend.
It wasn't until later that night, he got to work on the robot.
"I'm really grateful he took the whole thing on. It's amazing we even had a robot to enter," Rabeendran says.
Janet is built from the school's robotic kit set, gifted to Orewa College by Kiwi First, a robotics charitable trust.
Rabeendran, who applied for the Kiwi First grant, hopes to see robotics take off at the college, and says it's the perfect blend of science, digital technology and fun.
Last year, Isaac represented the school at the Massey University STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) Challenge.
As part of the Orewa College technology team, Isaac created a paperless Duke of Edinburgh award app to win the challenge.
-Rodney Times
Read the original post:
School robotics competition taken out by four-wheeled 'Janet' - Stuff.co.nz
The blue screen of death. That little paper clip that used to pop up with irritating suggestions every time you used Word. Pre-loading Internet Explorer on every personal computer. Four decades into a career that has made him one of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates has come up with some genuinely terrible stuff over the years.
But he has just had his worst idea yet taxing robots.
The founder of Microsoft MSFT, -0.20% argues that with robots increasingly likely to replace many human workers, the only way to make up for all the lost tax revenue, and to civilize the spread of automation, is to charge the machines directly. It is increasingly popular theme. The European Parliament has taken it up, and it is a flagship policy for the Socialist candidate in Frances presidential election.
Why are the voice assistants in our phones, speakers and computers overwhelmingly female instead of male? WSJ's Joanna Stern explains. Photo/video: Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal.
Yet is it also completely crazy. Why? Because robots wont pay any taxes, their owners will. Because it will slow down the one thing that is likely to lift productivity. And because it encourages the fallacy that somehow there is somebody else who can pay for the state rather than ordinary workers.
Whether the robotic revolution is everything it is cracked up to be remains to be seen. There is certainly a huge amount of hype around drones, driverless cars, artificial intelligence, and automated factory work. Advances in computing are making lots of tasks like delivery susceptible to automation, and white-collar jobs in fields such as medicine, law and accountancy may soon come under pressure as well.
As that gathers pace, governments around the world are becoming increasingly worried about the impact on the tax base after all, payroll charges are one of the largest sources of their income, and every time a carbon-based worker is replaced with a silicon-based one, that money disappears. You dont need to be penning a dystopian novel to start imagining a world in which mass unemployment is widespread, bankrupt governments have no money to alleviate their suffering with welfare, and pretty much all the worlds wealth is in the hands of a few AI billionaires.
To his credit, and unlike many of his high-tech peer group, Gates is at least worried about that.
In an interview this week, he made the case for taxing robots as they replace workers. Right now if a human worker does $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed, he told Quartz. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think we would tax the robot at a similar level.
He is far from alone. Last year, a draft report from the European Parliament made the case for making robots pay the same kind of payroll taxes as their human counterparts.
In France, Benoit Hamon came from nowhere to win the governing Socialist Party nomination for president on the strength of a plan for taxing machines to help pay for an ambitious universal basic income. In his ideal world, it appears, wed all relax all day, while the robots did all the work, and wed be paid from their taxes.
In fairness, you can see what they are all getting at. Robotics, like any innovative technology, will create a wave of disruption. There will be losers as well as winners, and there is no reason why the people whose jobs are taken should not be compensated. Payroll taxes make up a huge percentage of government revenues, especially in countries such as France. Lose that, and society may cease to function.
The trouble is, taxing robots is a terrible idea, and one that will only damage the economy. Heres why.
First, there is no evidence to suggest that robots will destroy jobs rather than simply change the type of work people do. We have a couple of hundred years of scare-mongering about new technology to tell us that every time a new type of machine comes along, everyone worries about what people will do instead. And then lots of new jobs get created that we never imagined before.
Gates, who destroyed the typing pool with his word-processing software, should know that better than anyone.
Next, robots wont be paying the taxes people will. It might seem obvious, but every automated machine will be owned by somebody, usually a person or a corporation. The tax will simply be paid by them. The robot itself wont have a salary, and wouldnt need one they dont eat, go out on dates, buy books or clothes, or do any of the things that people need money for. The tax will simply be paid by the owner. If we want them to pay higher taxes, we might as well charge them directly rather than do it via the robot.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when you tax something you get less of it. Thats why we tax cigarettes or gas-guzzling cars at high rates because wed like people to give up smoking, or drive more fuel-efficient vehicles.
If we tax robots, at the margin, companies will use them a bit less often. Sure, that means we will keep a few low-paying jobs for a bit longer. But it will also slow down the rate of productivity growth, and in the medium term that will make everyone poorer.
If anything, we should offer business a tax break for installing robots not a penalty.
And thats before we even get into the issue of whether we want to pointlessly antagonize the robots by slapping taxes on them you have to assume that all the people making that case have never watched any sci-fi.
In truth, AI and robotics promises to fuel a new wave of growth, which the world could certainly use. Even if it doesnt, it will certainly replace lots of dull tasks, and remove a lot of daily drudgery. The last thing we want to do is tax that out of existence no matter how many software billionaires tell us we should.
Read this article:
Opinion: Taxing robots is Bill Gates's dumbest idea yet - MarketWatch
TechFire member Brett Gallagher, 14, of Stewartstown, works on his laptop while teammember Katie Neptune, 13, of Manchester Township, looks on as the team prepares for their upcoming FIRST Robotics Competition in Jacobus, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. Dawn J. Sagert photo(Photo: The York Dispatch)Buy Photo
For the past six weeksYork County's robotics team, TechFire 225, has been hard at work on their competition robot for the upcoming season.
During that time, 36 students on the team have poured every spare second they have into their robot before the Feb. 21 deadline, after which the team has very strict instructions on when and how they can work on their robot.
TechFire 225 is a local For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) team. FIRST is a global organization with a focus on getting kids interested in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) and robotics. According tothe website, FIRST has more than 400,000 students who participate each year.
Autoplay
Show Thumbnails
Show Captions
TechFire 225represents 11 different schools in York County and has students from age 13 to 18. These students compete year round, but the main season runs from January to April each year.
On Jan.7, this year's FIRST competition was announced. Each year the competition hasa newtheme with different sets of rules, so upon the announcement the students, with the help of approximately 13 community mentors, begin building a brand new robot each year from scratch.
If you ask to see the robot or take photos, don't expect to get far. This team is the real deal and takes its competition seriously. They won't post any photos of their robot or its design before competition to keep that edge against other teams in the region.
This season:This year's theme is "FIRST Steamworks" and involves robots picking up balls, which represent fuel, and shooting them into a machine. The robots must also pick up gears that are handed to human players and must be able to climb up a rope at the end of the game, among many other things.Each part of the game results inpoints.Three FIRST teams form an alliance during the competition to compete against an alliance three other teams.
Amy Harmon Krtanjek
, a team mentor,said TechFire 225 spent two or three days after the worldwide announcementanalyzing the rules and coming up with different aspects the robot absolutely needed to have, like a space to carry the balls that the robot needed to be able to pick up.
After that, the team immediately began prototyping and building different aspects of the robot. The robot must be sealed in a bag at midnight on Feb. 21 to ensure it is not opened again. The team may unseal the bag and work on the robot for a total of sixhours after the deadline and leading up to the start of competition in March, but these hours need to be meticulously logged or they could be disqualified from competing, team mentor Donnie Krtanjek said.
Donnie Krtanjek is Amy Harmon Krtanjek's husband. Their son, Jagr
, is also involved in TechFire 225 as a student from York Country Day School.
TechFire 225 goes above and beyond just completing a competition robot, a difficult task alone.
They also create an exact replica of their competition robot, which they will work on and use after the Feb. 21 deadline. This extra robot allows them to practice after the deadline and make changes. If they like the changes or notice problems, they know exactly what to fix on the competition robot and can do it quickly, so they don't waste one minute of thesixhours they have.
Being a student on the TechFire 225 team requires important skills for the future, like working on a large team, working on deadline, marketing, communicating an idea effectively and, of course, plenty of skills in technology and engineering.
"It teaches kids persistence," Amy Krtanjek said. "A lot of times the kids here are really smart, so they've never really hit a wall in school."
They hit plenty of walls with TechFire 225, though.
JagrKrtanjek,a sophomore at York Country Day school who works with the Computer Aided Design (CAD) section of the team, said that building involves a lot of trial and error. Jagr helps builda computerized idea of what the robot should look like, so that while teams are working on different aspects, he can make sure they all come together seamlessly. This requires a lot of updates and changes as they go.
The regional competition starts in March, but TechFire 225 won't compete until March 18 and 19.On March 18 the team will compete for their rank, which is used with other data by teams to figure out who their alliances should be. March 19 will be the playoffcompetition. This competition will take place in Philadelphia.
After that, the team will compete in Montgomery, Pennsylvaniaon April 1 and 2. Depending on how well they do, the team will move on to compete in the world championships at the end of April.
TechFire team member Ben Schwartz, 14, of Hopewell Township, looks for spacers for the gear holder while working on the teams robot for their upcoming FIRST Robotics Competition, in Jacobus, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. Dawn J. Sagert photo(Photo: The York Dispatch)
Last year:TechFire 225 could very well attend the world matches. The team is coming back from last year's phenomenal season, during which they did attend the world championship and placed in the top 24 teams out of 3,200, according to an earlier press release.
The team also attended the Indiana Robotics Invitational (IRI), a competition Jagr described as even more difficult than FIRST's competitions because it is by invitation only. Each year only 70 of the most successful teams in the country are chosen. TechFire 225 has been invited for the past three years, but this year they took second place in their alliance with other robotics teams and broke a world record.
York robotics students excel at world championships
The Team:Representing 11 different schools in York County and a variety of ages, the TechFire 225 team is incredibly diverse. One thing they all have in common is a passion for their robot, yet to be named. Each member chips in by doing whatever they can, even if it has littleto do with the technological side.
For example, 16-year-old Elle Wagner works on the scouting side of things. She's worked with other members to build an app that organizes different FIRST teams' competition information. She's instrumental in choosing who they should partner with during competitions. She first joined three years ago when she heard about the team in class at Susquehannock High School and went to an event.
"I love the strategy, I think it's so cool," Elle said.
Her favorite part about being on the team is the dynamic, not only among her own team members but the other teams during competition. FIRST, and thus TechFire 225, are huge proponents of gracious professionalism, which means being gracious even to your competitors regardless of the outcome.
"Everyone respects everyone," Ellesaid. "It's not just robots. The team environment is different than any other sport."
TechFire CAD team member Jagr Krtanjek, 15, of Loganville, works with specs for the FIRST Robotics Competition Team's robot in Jacobus, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. Dawn J. Sagert photo(Photo: The York Dispatch)
Through her time at TechFire, Elle has found a passion for bio engineering, which she ultimately hopes to major in when she graduates.
Kylie Nikolaus, a 17-year-old senior on the team from Eastern York High School, has had a similar experience, but unlike Elle she loves the technical side. She joined the team four years ago with her best friend and has been an active member ever since.Thanks to TechFire 225, Kylie will also studyengineering, but she isn't sure which school she'll attend just yet.
"I think no matter what someone is interested in, there's a place for them here," she said, referring to the opportunities to work on the team's social media, marketing to sponsors and donors and other aspects.
Bryce Neptune, a 16-year-old student from Central York High School, joined TechFire 225 two years ago after he heard about it through the grapevine and was hooked immediately. He said TechFire helped him break out of his shell and realize his dream of studying engineering at MIT.
"It helps you broaden your horizons and helps you refine skills," Bryce said.
Read or Share this story: http://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/education/2017/02/21/techfire-gears-up-robotics-competitions/98168360/
Original post: