Daily Archives: February 12, 2017

The Eagletronics Robotics Team at Alice Shaw Elementary has been hard at work preparing to showcase their newest invention an alert to save wolves to the First Lego League.

Every year, the First Lego League determines a theme for the year that students have to design their competition projects around this year it's Animal Allies.

The yearly challenge has three facets: the robotic challenge, in which a team-built robot has to complete an obstacle course designed by the League; core values, which is how the students use teamwork and character traits like solution finding and respect while engaging in the robotic challenge; and a final project.

The Eagletronics team was meeting every Wednesday at lunch and after school on Fridays, as well as collaborating with a robotics team in New Mexico, to complete their project to save the wolves in and around Yellowstone National Park.

Our radio activated guard box has been modified with an infrared sensor for thermal detection of wolves, said Shaws robotics team adviser Valerie Trenev.

Trenev explained why the team decided to devote their project to helping wolves.

Wolves, unfortunately, are targeted as predators in the wild, Trenev said. They go to a ranchers property and eat their sheep or cattle. The wolves are a problem because theyre going in to the areas where the livestock and cattle are. The ranchers lose a lot of money when their livestock gets eaten, so they get really mad and shoot the wolves.

Were noticing a comeback of the wolves, she said. They were nearly exterminated in the early 1900s and now were seeing a huge comeback. Now, where they graze on federal land, were seeing a huge problem.

She explained that the presence of cattle drive away deer, which are typically what the wolves feed on. So, since they cant hunt deer, the wolves go after livestock on federal ranches, where there are typically no fences or boundaries for livestock.

The box is designed to sound alarms and strobe lights when it is activated by body heat as it crosses certain perimeters. Their hope is that by scaring the wolves, or other predators, they will be deterred from hunting livestock which will in turn save the wolves lives.

After competing in a regional competition through the FLL, the Eagletronics team came in the Top 25 out of 376 teams in Southern California. Although they didnt make the final cut, the team said they did a good job about spreading the word to other teams.

The project also won an award at the local competition the team entered.

After news spread about Eagletronics invention, FLL did a shout out blast about the team and their project that went to 25,000 teams around the world, leading a team out of New Mexico that is also working on a project about wolves, to reach out and offer help.

Eagletronics has been Facetiming the New Mexico team for development and technical ideas and support.

While Trenev said shes not sure when the project will actually be completed and showcased, they continue to work on it every chance they get, and experiment with different types of alarms.

Weve tried Metallica and radio talk show, she said, laughing, noting that theyve also recorded students yelling phrases to deter to the wolves.

A fifth-grader at Shaw and first-year robotics team member, Lillian Evans, said she has a lot of background knowledge on the project and that she finds it important to do this for wolves, cattle and ranchers.

Its mostly for the wolves, she said. Id be devastated if wolves died out.

Evans, who said she has been the team spirit throughout the project, works mostly with details related to the project, although she also creates props. Her latest props were wolf ears she made for the team to wear at competitions. She also wears a fur vest and carries a sign that says Save the Wolves.

Were very excited, she said.

Besides finishing their project, the Eagletronics Team will be attending a Spring Showcase in mid-May to compete beside other Southern California student robotics teams in the robotic challenge and core values arenas.

Krista Chandler covers education in Santa Maria for Lee Central Coast News. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @KristasBeat.

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Alice Shaw robotics team building invention to save wolves | Local ... - Lompoc Record

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SAN FRANCISCO Ford Motor is spending $1 billion to take over a budding robotics startup to acquire more expertise needed to reach its ambitious goal of having a fully driverless vehicle on the road by 2021.

The big bet announced Friday comes just a few months after the Pittsburgh startup, Argo AI, was created by two alumni of Carnegie Mellon Universitys robotics program, Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander.

The alliance between Argo and Ford is the latest to combine the spunk and dexterity of a technologically savvy startup with the financial muscle and manufacturing knowhow of a major automaker in the race to develop autonomous vehicles. Last year rival General Motors paid $581 million to buy Cruise Automation, a 40-person software company that is testing vehicles in San Francisco.

The Argo deal marks the next step in Fords journey toward building a vehicle without a steering wheel or brake pedal by 2021 a vision that CEO Mark Fields laid out last summer.

The big-ticket deal for the newly-minted company clearly was aimed at getting Salesky and Rander. Salesky formerly worked on self-driving cars at a high-profile project within Google now known as Waymo and Rander did the same kind of engineering at ride-hailing service Uber before the two men teamed to launch Argo late last year.

When talent like that comes up, you dont ignore that ability, said Raj Nair, who doubles as Fords chief technical officer and product development head.

The two will develop the core technology of Fords autonomous vehicle the virtual driver system, which Nair described as the cars brains, eyes, ears and senses.

The decision to turn to Argo for help is a tacit acknowledgement that Ford needed more talent to deliver on Fields 2021 promise, said one expert familiar with Salesky and Rander.

This is likely a realization that Ford is behind relative to companies like GM, Audi, Volvo, Waymo and Uber, and is trying to catch up, said Raj Rajkumar, a Carnegie Mellon computer engineering professor who leads the schools autonomous vehicle research.

Salesky said Argo expects to have 200 workers by the end of the year. Argo employees will be given stock in the subsidiary as part of their compensation packages so they will be enriched if Argos technology becomes a hot commodity.

The equity should set Argo apart from other companies in recruiting scarce tech workers. Theres a war for talent out there, Fields said.

By joining with Ford, Argo gets strong capital backing and expertise on other components needed to run autonomous cars, as well as product development and manufacturing knowledge, Salesky said. In return for its funding, Argo will design its driverless system exclusively for Ford and then have a chance to license the technology to other automakers in the future.

Competitors such as NVIDIA have developed artificial intelligence that learns about different situations as its tested on roads, something that is almost essential for an autonomous car to function in heavy traffic on city streets.

Ford isnt just racing General Motors and other automakers to gain robotics experience. Uber bought autonomous trucking startup Otto for an estimated $680 million last summer primarily to get Ottos engineers on its team working on driverless vehicles. Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski, another former Google engineer, is now overseeing Ubers testing of driverless cars in Pittsburgh and Arizona.

Originally posted here:

Ford Motor bets $1 billion on robotics startup - Toledo Blade

WEISER On Friday, a team of freshmen from Caldwell High School earned the top prize in a regional robotics tournament and a chance to compete in the upcoming state championship.

The tournament, made up of 38 middle school and high school teams, tasked students with designing and building a robot that can compete against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge.

The Caldwell High School senior team won the excellence award for the best overall robot design and student achievement.

Story continues below video

Coach Dennis Zattiero, who teaches pre-engineering at Caldwell High School, said this years victory is in keeping with tradition. He said the school has competed in the world championships three of the last four years.

The thing I find most interesting, is that the teams dont get the pieces to build their robot until the beginning of the school year, Zattiero said.

When they do receive the parts, students often devote up to 200 hours into building the robot, essentially from scratch.

The most unique thing about the competition, Zattiero said, is that students must take the knowledge they have learned in school and apply it to building their robot. The games are what he calls discovery-based learning, which allows students the time they need to work through the issues they face in a real-world setting. The process is difficult, however, and teams are often unable to complete their robot or make it operational.

Once completed, the robot is used to compete in 10 rounds of one-on-one strategy-based tasks. There are three separate tasks teams must complete in the span of two minutes.

The first task teams complete in that time frame is programming their robot to autonomously pick up foam jacks and move them over a fixed wall. The next phase involves putting as many jacks over the wall as possible with an opponent defending the other side with their robot. For the final task, the robot must grab to a certain point on a wooden post and lift itself as high as it can. Many teams dont get to this point due to its difficulty, Zattiero said.

Two minutes doesnt seem like much time, he said. But once the match starts it seems like forever because they have so much to do.

Tournaments are held year-round at the regional, state, and national levels, with local champions going on to compete against the best in the world at VEX World championships in April. The competitions are sponsored by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, a Texas-based organization dedicated to inspiring science and technology learning.

Read more:

Freshman Caldwell team takes first place in Regional Robotics Tournament - Idaho Press-Tribune

FAIRMONT Building, planning and plotting, several Marion County students took it to the limit in last weekends 2017 VEX Robotics West Virginia Regional Tournament.

The Marion Comets team, which consists of seven members, is led by Fairmont Senior High School science teacher Ann Burns.

The Marion County robotics teams were made possible by the creation of West Side Robotics in 2009, a nonprofit organization that helps fund teams in the county and promotes an interest in the field.

We were finding that a lot of times with kids who were on LEGO Robotics teams, one of the things was, if you wanted to get sponsorship from other organizations or businesses, sometimes they wanted it to be tax-deductible, West Side Robotics President Cheryl Van Horn said. The reason we became a nonprofit was to provide a way to help fund and support the robotics teams.

The Comets were part of a 23-team field at the Robert H. Mollohan Research Center Feb. 4, all vying for a chance to go to the state tournament.

In VEX competitions, the teams are presented with an engineering challenge game, and they must build and develop robots to accomplish their goal. The teams usually compete directly with each other, trying to score as many points in a given game as possible.

During the regional tournament, two alliances, composed of two teams each, competed against each other to rack up points by scoring different items in each others zones and hanging robots from hanging bars.

Mobility is definitely important in this game, especially defensively, Marion Comets team member and FSHS student Sinead Tobin said. We talked with other teams a little bit. We were considering what would be the highest scoring elements in the game, and we built our robots around that. Originally, we had three groups that put together three robots and we had a small scrimmage. We just combined elements from each one.

The Marion Comets were split in half for the competition, with Team B led by Tobin.

Tobin said that VEX Robotics provides an outlet for middle school and high school students interested in science, technology, engineering and math to put their skills to the test in a fun and competitive way.

It really isnt that common, but theyre trying to bring more STEM activities to the youth because there is such a great need for those jobs, and there will be in the future, Tobin said. (My siblings and I) are all computer geeks, so it kind of runs in the family.

Indeed, promoting interest in STEM fields is a primary goal of the robotics competitions, according to NASA Program Manager Todd Ensign.

West Virginia faces an uncertain economic future if we do not adapt our business sector to focus more on high-technology industries, Ensign said in a previous interview. Our students are currently not adequately prepared to engage in the high-tech job sector and are leaving our state for opportunities elsewhere.

We need to empower our educators to provide the necessary career, STEM and 21st-century skill training to our students in order to counter these trends and entice businesses to our state. The No. 1 concern of employers considering locating or relocating in West Virginia, and in particular this area, is a labor-ready workforce.

While the Marion Comets didnt win the regional competition, theyll have another chance to go to the state competition during another qualifier on Feb. 25 in Charleston.

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Face off: Marion students compete in robotics competition - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

MOSCOW - The atmosphere in Memorial Gym Saturday was pretty congenial, considering the 26 teams had spent months preparing for this robotics competition.

Rather than trying to intimidate opponents, the teens were mostly curious about the other robots in the room and eager to help their potential rivals figure out any last-minute glitches.

"The way this challenge is set up is brilliant," said Stephanie Goeckner, a coach for the Artificial Intelligence team from the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley. "Each team is randomly paired with another team to form an alliance, so they have to look at the other robots as a potential teammate, not as antagonists. It immediately creates a sense of community."

Hosted by the University of Idaho Extension 4-H, the FIRST Tech Challenge tournament drew participants from every corner of Idaho. The opening ceremony featured a few words of welcome from UI President Chuck Staben and a colorful crowd of kids excited to put their programming, engineering and robots to the test.

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology - is an intermediate robotics competition for high-school-aged kids who work alongside mentors, applying real-world math and science concepts to solve the annual challenge. Cooperation is key at the high-energy regional tournaments, which reward the effectiveness of each robot, the power of collaboration and the determination of students, said Robin Baumgartner, coordinator of 4-H science programs at UI.

"Not only is it really awesome that you have kids building amazing robots, these challenges teach them lifelong skills, such as how to be gracious, public speaking, budgeting and time management," Baumgartner said. "These teams also do a lot of community outreach and usually mentor younger Lego league groups."

The Artificial Intelligence team, led by Goeckner and RaeAnn Goodnow, was dressed in red and working on a robot named Hypercube 2.0. The seven members, ranging in age from 12 to 16, spent almost every day together in the two weeks leading up to Saturday's event. Over the past six months, they've been meeting regularly at Goodnow's house in Clarkston to build and program the robot and document the process through notes and photographs.

"These kids are dedicated and determined," Goodnow said. "They have learned to fix problems on the fly. We are just two moms who have kids who wanted to be on a tech team. We are not mechanical or experienced programmers, so the kids kind of have to figure it out themselves."

Her 14-year-old son, Derek Goodnow, was up until 3 a.m. working on the programming.

Each robot had to complete a series of tasks during the games, both autonomously and with "drivers" holding the controls. Using a combination of sensors, including infrared tracking, line following, magnet seeking, ultrasonic and touch, the students programmed their robots to operate both alone and with control modes.

Mallory Hardin, a 15-year-old Clarkston girl, was in charge of driving the robot for the Artificial Intelligence team. Hypercube 2.0 was ready to race around a playing field as family and fans cheered from the stands.

"It's really thrilling, nerve wracking and adrenaline-filled," Hardin said before the competition began.

Paulie Sanchirico, 14, of Lewiston, said the robotics program has been a valuable experience from both educational and social standpoints.

"I feel like I learned a lot about engineering and I get to hang out with my friends," Sanchirico said. "It's a good way to meet other teams and talk about how they designed their robots."

Eileen Rowan, who coaches the Clearwater Atomic Robotic Technician team based in Orofino, brought five kids to the challenge. Dressed in white lab coats and fedoras, the group was thrilled when their robot passed the mandatory inspection, prior to the actual games.

"Other teams have helped us here today and that's why we're able to compete," Rowan said.

Madison Colwell, a 15-year-old Peck resident, said she enjoys the camaraderie as much as the actual competition.

"I do a lot of 4-H projects and most of them are individual projects," Colwell said. "This one is team-based. We all get along and don't get along at times. We are like a family. We argue like siblings."

Baumgartner said the best way to get on a team is to start one. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the 4-H robotics program can contact her at (208) 364-4603.

"This is a challenging, technology-rich, exciting program that inspires kids to get into science, technology and engineering," she said. "They discover the rewarding and engaging process of innovation and how to compete with gracious professionalism."

Sandaine may be contacted at kerris@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2264. Follow her on Twitter @newsfromkerri.

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Robotics event offers lesson in teamwork - Lewiston Morning Tribune (subscription)

NEWARK, NJ The RoboRocks and the 3Engineers from the Livingston Robotics Club were recently honored by the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders for their hard work and tremendous accomplishments, especially as first time competitors in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL), Competition

Livingston Mayor Shawn Klein was also present during the presentation and shared remarks congratulating the team for their success and fantastic innovations. At-Large Freeholder and Livingston resident Patricia Sebold, who sponsored the commendations, praised both teams as she presented them with citations.

Both teams are from Livingston, and Livingston is my hometown, said Sebold. Ive lived in Livingston since 1962, and I am proud to honor the 3Engineers and Roborocks.

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The Livingston Robotics Club Team has been very busy during the 2016 season, capturing recognitions throughout the year, according to the board.

In December, the 3Engineers competed in the North Jersey FIRST LEGO League State Championship and won the Champions Award and the Judges Award. The team also won the 1st Place Robot Game Award at the 2016 FLL Sparta Qualifying Tournament.

The RoboRocks won the Core Values Award and the 1st Place Robot Game Award at the 2016 FIRST LEGO League Clifton Qualifying Tournament and also participated in the 2016 Northern New Jersey FLL State Championship Competition.

The RoboRocks and the 3Engineers competed in the FLL State Championship for the first time against 60 teams composed of children from ages 9 to 14 from Northern New Jersey. The teams were judged in three areas, including: project, robot design, and core values. The competition was composed of a three-round robot game.

This years theme was Animal Allies, focusing on challenging students to create an innovative solution to solve a real-world problem to improve the interactions between humans and animals. The teams designed, built and programmed an autonomous robot to compete in the Robot Game, which comprised many missions related to the Animal Allies theme.

The thams goal was to create an innovative tool to improve relationships between animals and humans, and the 3Engineers Team accomplished this by presenting a drone to provide tracking and communication to rangers to stop poachers from killing African rhinos. Equally as innovative, the RoboRocks Team presented a prototype, the Deer-Off Dog, which uses lights and sounds to scare deer away from the backyards.

The Livingston Robotics Club Team was founded in August 2007 and was formally named Livingston Robotics Club and became a 501(c)(3) in 2008. Its mission is to provide a community-based experience-sharing network to introduce Livingston area youth to robotics design and real-life science research, consistent with the vision of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST).

Today, the club has grown to become a Kindergarten-to 12th-grade community-based science and robotics organization with more than 100 student members from Livingston and surrounding towns. The club is composed of 30 volunteer parents and mentors that lead the teams, and they encourage youth to actively partake in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education with hands-on project based learning.

Jay Slavin, Chandu Mulinti and Sachin Sawant coached the 3Engineers Team whose members are: Logan Slavin, Aarav Mulinti, and Kavin Sawant. Geoffrey Zheng and Jim Wang coached the RoboRocks Team whose members are: Kevin Zhang, Shining Wang, Isabelle Gao, Valentina Zheng, Hannah Shi, and Grant Zhou.

The coaches also shared remarks, thanking the board for thecommendations and recognition. The coaches stressed that the kids efforts were a combination of both STEM education and teamwork. The teams look forward to achieving more success in the future.

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Essex County Freeholders Honor Livingston Robotics Club Teams - TAPinto.net

Math, science, engineering and teamwork skills were put to the test in Brooklyn today as students competed using LEGO robots. Our Bree Driscoll has the story.

10-year-old PS 57 student Isabel Silva has been learning about robots for the past three years. But this year, she is exploring a whole new aspect of the technology.

"Well I have never used a sensor for a robot but I am learning about it and you need to program the sensor so the robot can stop and it is really hard to learn because I have never used a sensor on a robot before," Sliva said.

Silva is one of more than 250 students from around the city competing in the 2017 First Lego League Brooklyn Qualifiers. Teams have been working for five months on building a robot that is designed to do complex tasks. The goal is to put their science technology engineering and math skills to the test.

"It's putting it into practical terms so they can turn from playing with a robot on a competition field to Years from now programming the Canadarm Two on the international space station," said Norm Sutaria, director of programs for NYC FIRST.

"It really encourages them and makes them feel a part of something," said Daron Burrows, with the city's Department of Youth and Development. "Part of a community. It makes them feel cool and appreciated and smart."

This year's competition challenge is called Animal Allies it asks teams to explore and research how people and animals interact, something students are really identifying with.

"Because they are really amazing creatures. Birds with mouths, beaks that can chop wood off," said Adryan Torres, a student at PS 100. "That is really amazing. We can't do that. We don't have beaks we have mouths."

"Dolphins they communicate using vibration sounds in the ocean so water pollution caused by humans can actually effect the sound in the ocean," said Melodie Whiting, a student at Young Women's Leadership School of Queens.

From here, winning teams will move on to the semifinal competition in early March.

Link:

Students Compete in LEGO Robotics Design Contest in Brooklyn - NY1

Woodall School's Cybercats Robotics Team participated recently in the Broken Arrow VRC-Vex StarStruck Tournament at the Broken Arrow Academy, a news release states. Woodall eighth-grade student Ty Brant and third-grade students Hunter Williams and Isaiah Chavez displayed a high level of enthusiasm and passion for robotics and showed they understand how to work together to develop their robot. The team won two of six matches against middle and high school teams from across the state.

In the VEX Competitions, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, teams of students are tasked with designing and building a robot to play against other teams from around the world in a game-based engineering challenge. Classroom STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)concepts are put to the test on the playing field as students learn lifelong skills in teamwork, leadership, communications, and more.

Tournaments are held year-round at the regional, state, and national levels; local champions go on to compete against the best in the world at VEX Worlds each April.

Information: Dr. Geary Crofford, (918) 456-1581, gcrofford@woodall.k12.ok.us orwww.vexrobotics.com.

Excerpt from:

Woodall robotics team competes in Broken Arrow - Muskogee Daily Phoenix