Daily Archives: March 31, 2017

Did medical Darwinism doom the GOP health plan? – Raw Story

Posted: March 31, 2017 at 7:12 am

We are now contemplating, Heaven save the mark, a bill that would tax the well for the benefit of the ill.

Although that quote reads like it could be part of the Republican repeal-and-replace assault against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), its actually from a 1949 editorial in The New York State Journal of Medicine denouncing health insurance itself.

Indeed, the attacks on the ACA seem to have revived a survival-of-the-fittest attitude most of us thought had vanished in America long ago. Yet, again and again, there it was in plain sight, as when House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) declared: The idea of Obamacare is that the people who are healthy pay for the people who are sick. Contemporary language, but the same thinking that sank President Harry Trumans health care plan almost seven decades ago.

Ryans indignation highlighted a fundamental divergence in attitudes that repeatedly turned the health care debate into a clash over the philosophy behind Obamacare-style health insurance. To some, the communal pooling of financial risk of medical expenses seems too often an unacceptable risk to personal responsibility.

As a researcher who has documented this approach to health care, Ive been startled to see the debate over the AHCA reignite a political philosophy and policy approach that seemed to be have been discredited and be in sharp decline.

When Truman launched the first comprehensive effort to cover all Americans, most of the population had no health insurance.

Last year, thanks to the ACA, nearly 90 percent did, according to a Gallup-Healthways poll. Yet then and now, many conservatives have downplayed the impact on physical health and focused, instead, on fiscal temptation.

Take, for instance, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) warning low-income Americans on March 7, 2017 that they had to make a choice about their spending: So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care. (He later walked back his statement.)

In reality, of course, the premiums from the GOPs late and abandoned American Health Care Act would dwarf any savings from iPhone abstinence. For a 64-year-old making US$26,500 a year, the cost of health insurance would have shot up from $1,700 to $14,600, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), or more than half that individuals pre-tax income.

Chaffetz and others seem to sincerely believe that what keeps the great majority of people well is the fact that they cant afford to be ill although those words come from the 1949 editorialist again, not a Trump administration tweet. The editorial continued:

That is a harsh, stern dictum and we readily admit that under it a certain number of cases of early tuberculosis and cancer, for example, may go undetected. Is it not better that a few such should perish rather than that the majority of the population should be encouraged on every occasion to run sniveling to the doctor? That in order to get their moneys worth they should be sick at every available opportunity? They will find out in time that the services they think they get for nothing but which the whole people of the United States would pay for are also worth nothing.

As it happens, the effect predicted in 1949 on the detection of cancer less of it is precisely what has happened with the spread of high-deductible health plans praised by conservatives for encouraging more careful shopping by consumers. A study in Medical Care showed that screening rates for colorectal cancer declined under high-deductible plans until, under Obamacare, the federal government forced those plans to include first-dollar coverage of preventive services. The screening rates for colorectal cancer promptly rose. A recent study in Cancer found the same results for mammography.

Separately, surveys and research on high-deductible plans have found that 20 to 25 percent of people have avoided needed care of all kinds because they cant afford it.

Nonetheless, the GOPs conservative wing denounced ACA-mandated essential health benefits, echoing the idea that it is a threat to American freedom. Or as that same New York medical journal put it:

It is time that someone everyone should hoist Mr. Charles Darwin from his grave and blow life into his ashes so that they could proclaim again to the world his tough but practical doctrine of survival of the fittestThe Declaration of Independence said that man was entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Any man who wishes to pursue happiness had better be able to stand on his own feet. He will not be successful if he feels that he can afford to be ill.

For most physicians, that compassionless condescension lies in the faraway past; for example, the AHCA was overwhelmingly opposed by medical professional groups, including the American Medical Association.

Yet an implacable medical Darwinism retains a firm grip on many conservatives, even on physicians. Then-Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, an obstetrician/gynecologist and prominent Republican, told a sobbing woman at a 2009 public meeting on the ACA that government is not the answer when she said she couldnt afford care for her brain-injured husband.

Similarly, in 2011, after the ACA passed, then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), also an obstetrician/gynecologist, was asked what should be done about an uninsured, 30-year-old man in a coma. What he should do is whatever he wants to do and assume responsibility for himself, Paul responded, adding, Thats what freedom is all about, taking your own risk.

Or as conservative scholar Michael Strain put it in a 2015 Washington Post editorial: In a world of scarce resources, a slightly higher mortality rate is an acceptable price to pay for certain goals includingless government coercion and more individual liberty.

Strain is right, of course, that resources are limited. Moreover, its long been known that overgenerous health insurance can lead to overuse of medical care services.

However, most Americans, including some prominent conservative intellectuals, dont see stripping away health insurance from 24 million countrymen the CBOs estimate of the AHCAs 10-year impact as striking a blow for liberty. In a Quinnipiac University poll released just before the scheduled AHCA vote, only 17 percent of respondents approved of the Republican plan and 46 percent said theyd be less likely to vote for someone who supported it.

One day later, GOP leaders withdrew the legislation, sparing Republican representatives a vote on the record. Although Vice President Mike Pence has called evolution an unproven theory, it turns out Republicans really do believe in survival of the fittest (at least in a political sense), after all.

Michael L. Millenson, Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Survival of the Pithiest – The Weekly Standard

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In early 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, Charles Darwins On the Origin of Speciespublished in Britain in November 1859became a topic of conversation among a number of New England intellectuals. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau read the Origin. So did Bronson Alcott, the father of Louisa Alcott, and Charles Loring Brace, the founder of the Children's Aid Society. Two leading scientists also read the Origin: the botanist Asa Gray, who defended Darwin, and the zoologist Louis Agassiz, who attacked Darwin. Now, in The Book That Changed America, Randall Fuller declares that "the Origin did what few books ever do: alter the conversation a society is having about itself."

Did Darwin's theory of evolution really "ignite a nation"? It's hard to say from the evidence Fuller provides in this lucid book because he writes mainly about New England intellectuals. (Indeed, my only quibble with Fuller is that occasionally he adds novelistic touches that are not warranted.) Yet perhaps the subtitle is accurate, for Darwin wrote to Asa Gray: "I assure you I am astonished at the impression my Book has made on many minds."

The Origin only marginally altered the conversation about slavery. Darwin's theory that every living creature is descended from one prototype undermined the argument for polygenesisthe notion that God created blacks as a separate species. Yet many writers who agreed with Darwin that there was a common origin for all human beings nevertheless argued that blacks were at a lower stage of development than whites, somewhere between apes and humans. This view was widespread among Southern apologists for slaverycartoonists often depicted Abraham Lincoln as a man/apebut this view was also commonplace in the North. The Origin did not change anyone's mind about slavery; it just gave writers for and against slavery different arguments to support their positions. Darwinism, Fuller says, "could be used to support just about any social or political claim one wanted to make."

Like all the New England intellectuals, Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray condemned slavery, yet Agassiz insisted that blacks were a different species. Opposing miscegenationit was called "amalgamation"Agassiz believed that people of African descent should return to Africa. Gray said that it was impossible for blacks to be a different species: Different species cannot interbreed, yet slaveholders often mated with slaves. Polygenists argued that biracial children were infertile, but there was no evidence to support this claim. Charles Loring Brace agreed with Agassiz that it would be best if blacks emigrated: The United States, he argued, was a great nation because its leaders were Anglo-Saxons. He worried (Fuller writes) "that one day America might not be a white nation at all." Brace, however, disagreed with Agassiz about Darwin: He admired the Origin and made use of Darwin's theory in his Races of the Old World, which Fuller calls "a sprawling, ramshackle work ... deeply marred by a series of internal contradictions."

The Origin had a greater impact on the conversation about science and religion. Many Americans rejected the notion that the diversity of species was a result of chance. They agreed with Agassiz, who conducted a public campaign against Darwin, calling the theory of natural selection "fanciful." Agassiz said that God had created immutable species: "What," he asked, "has the whale in the arctic regions to do with the lion or the tiger in the tropical Indies?" Agassiz always invoked God as an explanation for the diversity of the animal kingdom: "There is a design according to which they were built, which must have been conceived before they were called into existence." (Gray argued that Agassiz's view "was theistic to excess." By referring the origin and distribution of species "directly to the Divine will," he said, Agassiz was removing the study of organic life from "the domain of inductive science.")

Bronson Alcott rejected any theory of species diversity that left out God. He offered his own odd take on evolutionarguing, in Fuller's words, that "all creatures had begun as humans, as part of a Universal Spirit. ... The lower the animal in the chain of being, the further that particular animal had fallen from its true spiritual state." Humans came first! Alcott was the most woolly-minded of the New England intellectuals, yet even the astute Gray was reluctant to give up the notion of design. He wrote to Darwin to say that design must have played some part in evolution; how else can one explain the extraordinary nature of the human eye? "I grieve to say that I cannot honestly go as far as you do about design," Darwin replied. "I cannot think the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of design." Darwin maintained that "the notion of design must after all rest mostly on faith." But he did not think his theory should affect people's religious beliefs: "I had no intention to write atheistically." Gray, a devout Presbyterian, concluded that God chose natural selection as the method for creation: "A fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable," he said. "The alternative is a designed Cosmos."

Fuller points out that, by 1876, "a large swath of the liberal clergy" agreed with Asa Gray that natural selection was a mechanism employed by God. Yet, to this day, many Americans do not accept Darwin's theory: According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Group, "34 percent of Americans reject evolution entirely, saying humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."

The Origin also affected the conversation Americans were having about politics. Should capitalism be regulated? Adam Smith thought that it should, but Social Darwinists warned that regulating capitalism was misguided because it was against nature. Capitalism should be understood as a Darwinian struggle where the "fittest" thrived; why help the "unfit" when it was clear from nature that they were doomed to fail? So argued Yale social scientist William Graham Sumner:

A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set upon him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness.

A good gloss on Sumner's thought is a remark Gray made to Brace: "When you unscientific people take up a scientific principle, you are apt to make too much of it, to push it to conclusions beyond what is warranted by the facts."

Fuller begins and ends this book with Thoreau, who admired Darwin's detailed observation of the natural world in both The Voyage of the Beagle and The Origin of Species. Thoreau was a budding natural scientist who took thousands of pages of notes about local flora. "What he intended to do with all this data," Fuller says, "is still not entirely clear." Fuller speculates that Thoreau may have "had difficulty organizing his material into a coherent project. ... He had adopted the methods of science without the benefit of a scientific theory."

The strongest evidence that Darwin influenced Thoreau comes from Thoreau's notebooks. In the last year of his life (Thoreau died in 1862) he embarked on a project to record the innumerable ways in which local forest trees propagated and thrived in a constantly changing environment. And in his notebook, he offers a hypothesis about what he has observed: "The development theory implies a greater vital force in nature, because it is more flexible and accommodating, and equivalent to a sort of constant new creation." Thoreau, Fuller contends, "no longer relies upon divinity to explain the natural world." Fuller supports his contention with another sentence from Thoreau's notebooks: "Thus we should say that oak forests are produced by a kind of accident."

Of course, the notion of "accident" would have been rejected by Bronson Alcott, who was a close friend of Thoreau's. Alcott visited Thoreau on the day he died, reporting that his friend was "lying patiently & cheerfully on the bed he would never leave again." Another visitor, an aunt, asked Thoreau: "Have you made your peace with God?"

"We never quarreled," Thoreau replied.

Stephen Miller is the author, most recently, of Walking New York: Reflections of American Writers from Walt Whitman to Teju Cole.

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Scappoose robotics takes second in opening competition – Pamplin Media Group

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Team celebrates win, gears up for next event at Lake Oswego

The Scappoose High School Robotics Club earned a second-place title during the first competition of the season at Clackamas Academy of Industrial Sciences on Saturday, March 25.

The team, which goes by the name Byte Sized, has been competing in FIRST Robotics competitions for several years, but last week's silver-medal finish marks the highest ranking in team history.

In FIRST Robotics competitions, teams are tasked with creating an autonomous robot that can maneuver around obstacles and complete tasks. Team alliances are selected and the teams engage in multiple battles over the span of a weekend. During those battles, the teams earn points by completing various goals, like shooting balls into a basket or loading metal gears onto a platform.

During the competition, Byte Sized experienced some complications when its robot, which was top heavy for some maneuvers, tipped over in one of the alliance battles in the final round. After the robot wasn't able to correct itself, the team was knocked

out. However, the points Byte Sized scored ahead of the

robot's toppling were sufficient to qualify for second place.

"We had a pretty good run up to that point," Beau Groom, senior, said of the mishap. "At first we were upset, and then we just kind of accepted it."

Team members said they were excited and thrilled about their accomplishment. Last June, the group of seniors who helped found the club graduated and, at the start of the season, some club members were concerned about how they would fill those shoes.

"We're excited that we got to a point that we've never gotten before," said Hayden Liao, a senior on the team.

Now that Byte Sized has taken home some hardware after the competition, its members are ecstatic about doing better than they ever have before. Liao said the team also owes a lot of its success to the newer, younger members who have stepped up.

Next, the team heads to Lake Oswego High School to compete over the weekend of Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1, where three Columbia County high school robotics teams will face off. The St. Helens High School Robotics and Engineering Club, or SHREC, and the Vernonia High School team, the LoggerBots, will also be at the competition.

For the three high schools, it will be the final competition of the season where they will try to score enough points to qualify for the Pacific Northwest Regional Championships. The teams must earn a total of 80 combined points in a competition season to qualify for district championships and are given two competition events to do so.

Currently, Scappoose and St. Helens are neck and neck in the statewide rankings at 75th and 76th place, respectively. The teams have also score similarly in terms of points. Scappoose has earned 38 points, while St. Helens has earned 36.

Sophomore Trent Lamont said he is looking forward to the competition this weekend as an opportunity to take home another team trophy.

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Robotics students get $500 contribution toward trips – Fairfield Daily Republic

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FAIRFIELD Fundraisers begin Monday for Fairfield-Suisun School District students to participate in robotics competitions in Houston and Kentucky.

The first fundraiser will take place Mondayat Marys Pizza Shack in Fairfield, with events to follow April 14 at Panda Express and May 3 at Chipotle.

Details about the fundraisers are available at http://www.facebook.com/grizzlybots.AHS.ArmiBots/.

School district trustees meeting Thursday reviewed a waiver of state law to allow the district to help pay for a $20,767 trip by eight students at Grange Middle School and Armijo High School to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championship scheduledApril 19-22 in Kentucky.

A second competition will take placein Houston and participation is estimated to cost about $10,000, said Dianne Halsey, an Armijo High School teacher who is adviser to the robotics team.

Competition this past weekend at a regional event garnered a Rookie All-Star Award for the Armijo students and qualified them for the competition next month in Houston, Halsey said.

The waiver of state law will return to the school board for potential action.

Solano County Supervisor Monica Brown, who retired as a Green Valley Middle School teacher, presented a $500 check from her personal funds to assist students.She urged support for the fundraising and said at Thursdays school board meeting that education will always be near and dear to my heart.

California Education Code does not allow school districts to pay expenses of studentsparticipating in field trip to other states, a staff report said.The Kentucky robotics competition with more than 16,000 participants is the worlds largest such event, according to the report.

The trip is both educationally and culturally enlightening for the predominantly low-income students, according to the report.

For more information about the robotics competition, send an email to[emailprotected].

Reach Ryan McCarthy at 427-6935 or [emailprotected].

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Ridgedale duo vexing robotics foes – Marion Star

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Mitchill Reasoner (right) and Jaylin Tyler prepare to get to work on their VEX Robot during the afternoon at Ridgedale High School. (Photo: Matthew Hatcher/ The Marion Star)Buy Photo

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a series ofstories The Marion Star is producing to highlight Marion County robotics teams participating in the VEX Worlds 2017 competition in Louisville, Kentucky.)

MORRAL - Jaylin Tyler and Mitchill Reasoner have one goal in mind as they prepare for a second consecutive trip to the VEX Worlds robotics competition.

"We want to win this year," said Tyler. He and fellow Ridgedale High School junior classmate Reasoner will head to the international robotics showdown April 19-22 in Louisville, Ky.

"We want to go to the tournament in our division this year and try to win that and go to the round robin, but it's going to be hard," said Reasoner.

Tyler and Reasoner have already enjoyed much success in2017. They capturedthe VEX Robotics robot skills state championship and finished runner-up in the state tournament competition.They also won the robot skills title in 2016.

Heading into the VEX Worlds later this month, the duo is ranked 130th in the world in robot skills. Last year, they finished the season ranked 30th out of more than 10,000 teams from 32 countries.

Tyler and Reasoner have won five tournament championships this year.

Dave Sieg, engineering technology and robotics instructor, said the Tyler-Reasoner tandem is the fourth team to represent Ridgedale at the VEX Worlds. They've become leaders in the school's robotics program, which numbers 40 students from eighth through 12th grade.

"Other kids look to them for guidance and a lot of great ideas," Sieg said. "There's no secret to it;they work hard. They want to come in on Sunday. They work Saturdays. They work together very well and complement each other. It's one plus one equals four. Synthetic energy. Group dynamic."

Success in robotics came early for Reasoner and Tyler. They won the coveted Honda Innovation Award as freshmen, besting more than 1,100 other competitorsat the National Robotics Challenge in Marion.

"Throughout the competition, judges kept coming up to us saying, 'You guys have this amazing robot,'" Tyler said. "They kept flattering us about it. ... Everybody around me had high hopes, but I didn't think we would win it. Then they called my name. It was like, just freeze. Then there were cheers. It was just crazy."

Ironically, Reasoner wasn't in attendance for the duo's moment of robotics crowningglory.

Mitchill Reasoner (right) and Jaylin Tyler make adjustments to their VEX Robot on Tuesday afternoon.(Photo: Matthew Hatcher/ The Marion Star)

"I was at a baseball game," said Reasoner, who was pitching for the Rockets that day. "I got a message from Sieg and thought, 'Wow. This just happened.' It was crazy. I told my mom and dad and they congratulated me and the baseball team congratulated me because they knew it was a big deal."

Tyler and Reasoner both said they enjoy the rush of tournament action.

"We go into complete competitive mode. It's a thrill," said Tyler.

Tyler is accruing college credit through the RAMTEC program at Tri-Rivers Career Center.

"I'm really close to a two-year degree right now," he said. "Through that, I plan on either accepting a job right out of high school or going for further education at a major engineering school like Cal Tech."

Mitchill Reasoner (left) and Jaylin Tyler spend their afternoon in the Ridgedale Shop classroom perfecting their vex robot for the upcoming World Vex Robotics Competition that will be held in Louisville, Kentucky.(Photo: Matthew Hatcher/ The Marion Star)

Tylerhas earned FANUC certification for tool handling and operations and OSHA 10 Hour Training that is part of the OSHA Outreach Training Program.

Reasoner wants to major in mechanical engineering, but hasn't decided on which college to attend. He said it depends on whether he is offered a scholarship to continue his golf career at the NCAA Division I level after high school.

"If I don't get a golf scholarship, I'm thinking about Clemson, Cincinnati, or Purdue," he said. "Those are my top choices."

Reasonerearned the distinction ofEagle Scout in 2015. He is a member of Troop 6046 Harding Area District of the Boy Scouts of America Heart of Ohio Council.

Andrew Carter is the Life In Marionreporter forThe Marion Star. Contact him at eacarter@gannett.com or 740-375-5154. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewCarterMS or Facebook @LifeInMarionOhio.

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Fetch Robotics unveils small but mighty autonomous mobile robot – ZDNet

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(Image: Fetch Robotics)

"Fetch is actually a software company that just happens to build robots," says Fetch Robotics CEO Melonee Wise. We spoke with Wise to learn more about two new robots that Fetch has added to its line of Freight robots.

Just like the first Freight, the new Freight500 and Freight1500 are autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that use mapping algorithms to navigate without the help of humans or infrastructure changes. They carry heavy loads in manufacturing and warehouse environments. Fetch's robots have a low profile -- just 14 inches tall -- but while the original version could only carry 220-pound loads, the new robots can support as much as 3,300 pounds.

Wise started her robotics career at robotics incubator Willow Garage, where she was a core developer for ROS (Robot Operating System), the software behind nearly all modern robots. Now, she focuses on commercializing robotics. "I think that one of the things that we as roboticists do poorly is bring our ideas out of the lab and into reality," she says, "So I'm really focused on making a product that people will use in the real world."

(Image: Fetch Robotics)

Fetch's original Freight AMR is still a nice solution for moving smaller items around, but now the company is expanding its line based on feedback from the real world. "What we heard from customers is that they really want to move things that are different sizes: pieces, cases, and pallets," Wise says.

Some facilities don't have room for large pallet-moving robots, but they still need help moving heavy loads. In this case, the Freight500, which can move 1,100-pound payloads, is the right fit. Other larger manufacturing plants want a whole fleet of different-sized robots to handle various tasks.

"We try to strike a balance between the extra payload capacity and the size of the robot because these robots are rather large," Wise explains.

The robots help transport items from one part of the facility to the other so that workers can save their time and energy for other tasks. Freight has also been used along with Trax computer vision for inventory tracking in retail stores.

"We're working with one Fortune 500 company that already has Freights deployed, and they're gearing up to do a pilot with us for the two new robots," Wise says. She adds, "They want to be able to have robots in all levels of their warehouses and retail stores so that they can improve delivery times from order to box."

There are other robotics companies making AMRs that can move heavy items around, most notably Clearpath Robotics, which raised $30 million in October for its Otto line of self-driving vehicles for materials transport. But Wise says that Fetch's software gives her company's robots a competitive advantage.

All of the Freight robots are integrated with Fetchcore, a cloud-based software for managing fleets of robots. Operators use the software to create and schedule workflows by adding stations, preferred routes, speed maps, and keep-out zones. This helps customers put their new robots to work in just a few days.

"We basically show up with the robots, attach them to the internet, and then we're up and running," Wise says.

VIDEO: Trump may bring jobs back to the US, but robots will get them

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The List: Robotics cluster continues to thrive in the Bay State – Boston Business Journal

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The List: Robotics cluster continues to thrive in the Bay State
Boston Business Journal
The 19 companies on this year's BBJ list of the Largest Robotics Companies in Massachusetts (which doesn't include large defense contractors or nonprofit labs) reported employing a combined workforce of 2,486 in the Bay State as of Feb. 1, 2017.

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Sweetwater Robotics Team Preparing for State – Big Country Homepage

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SWEETWATER, Texas (KTAB)--Two of the Sweetwater Middle School Lego Robotics teams are heading to the state competition in Austin. Coach Steve Withrow says the program has become extremely popular over the years. With over 150 applicants, he accepted 32 students to the program this year. Each team is made up of 3 to 4 students. The robotics team held their first practice on Thursday in preparation for the state competition.

"They've got to troubleshoot," Withrow says. "They've got to fix the problems and figure it all out."

It takes patience, creativity and teamwork to succeed in lego robotics. That's something these Sweetwater students know all too well.

"It teaches me how to be a better leader," 7th grade student and robotics team member, Mea Cedillo says. "Also, getting used to working with other people and being more patient."

"It's like the trial and error process," 7th grade student and robotics team member, Addison Page adds. "If one part doesn't work, then you have to start all the way over to fix it."

"When we go to robotics," Withrow explains. "There's two different types. There's inventions and then there's arena. Arena is going into an arena and competing against eah other. Invention is they create to solve a problem."

The state competition will be May 20 in Austin, Texas.

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Society of Peer Mentors uses robotics to mentor local students – LSU Now

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Robots may lack feelings, but they are being used to create bonds between local and University students.

The Society of Peer Mentors is a student organization dedicated to promoting leadership in the College of Engineering by allowing University students to be mentors and participate in outreach to local elementary, middle school and high school students. The robotics program is one aspect of the organization that provides outreach for local students whose schools have robotics programs.

Adrienne Steele, the Society of Peer Mentors adviser, said the college wrote a grant to the National Science Foundation to fund a retention group for engineering students. She said the student organization stemmed from the grant and was recognized in 2012.

Mechanical engineering junior and Society of Peer Mentors robotics chair April Gaydos said the mentors advise students on conflict resolution skills and serve as a resource for teachers who may not be as familiar with robotics.

We are there to close the gap because we have the engineering background to answer questions and know what will work and what wont work and help the kids come to a solution and a product, Gaydos said.

Schulze said the program mentors a total of 14 local schools. They participate in STEM nights at local schools and activities the students have put together, like Snap Circuit, a simplified circuit board students have put together to work on. The program also sponsors Louisiana Art and Science Museum Day.

The College of Engineering also has its own Supplemental Instruction program, independent of the Center for Academic Success.

The robotics program has particular areas of robotics that students learn about. The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology program, commonly known as FIRST, has a Junior FIRST Lego League for kindergarteners and first graders and a FIRST Lego League for elementary and middle school students that focus more on programming and testing.

VEX robotics gives students all year to design, build and compete in a smaller scale challenge.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is an expensive event for students to compete in, and not every school has the funds to participate. However, the FIRST Technological Challenge is an inexpensive option for students, Gaydos said.

Karl Schulze, a mechanical engineering senior and Society of Peer Mentors Robotics co-chair, said he was introduced to robotics during his junior year of high school. He said it inspired him to pursue robotics as a career choice. He participated in the Encounter Engineering Bridge program as an incoming freshman and joined the program, eventually making his way up to a leadership position.

It was difficult at first, but learning through different leadership styles of how [students] work and what personality [they are] and how my personality would work well with them, Schulze said. And if not, how can I improve that. Definitely getting out there and experiencing that was pretty cool.

Gaydos, on the other hand, has had experience working with robotics her whole life. She said she had no intentions of getting involved with them during college, but eventually did, and assumed the chair position her second semester as a freshman.

She said she created and led a workshop to help teachers learn what resources are needed to further educate students based on what the students have expressed.

Being a part of this has given me the practice and resources to be able to talk about it and communicate it effectively, Gaydos said. It is honestly the reason I got an internship last year and still have it today. And I do owe that to being a part of this program.

She said during her involvement in the program, she has been able to inspire girls to beat the stigma associated with women in STEM disciplines.

Even though they might not go into a STEM field, this gives the resources to kind of plant a seed in that they can believe in themselves, they can do what they want, they dont have to be told what to do, Gaydos said. Its kind of like an empowerment.

The 2017 Bayou Regional FIRST Robotics Program was held at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, Louisiana, March 23-25. A total of 60 teams were present, from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, as well as one team from Mexico, one from China and one from Turkey.

Schulze said all the teams learned about the game for the competition at the same time and had six weeks to design, build and test their robots before having to bag up the robots and leave them alone until competition.

Schulze said the mentors were there to help out and ensure the robots were inspected before competition.

The top eight teams moved on from qualification matches to elimination matches, and each team formed an alliance with three other teams for a double-elimination bracket.

The winners were Team 3616 Phenomena from Lafayette, Louisiana; Team 3937 Breakaway from Searcy, Arkansas; and Team 281 The Green Villians from Greenville, South Carolina. These teams will go on to compete internationally in Houston, Texas, and St. Louis, Missouri.

Gaydos said she helped with judging at the competition. She said two awards will send students to the international event after the teams present outreach with STEM and volunteering to judges. Team 1912 Team Combustion from Slidell, Louisiana won the Chairmens Award and Team 3278 Lambot from San Luis Potosi, Mexico won the Engineering Inspiration Award. These two teams will join the winning three to go to the international competition.

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Society of Peer Mentors uses robotics to mentor local students - LSU Now

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Facebook’s Virtual Reality Boy Wonder Departs – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Los Angeles Times
Facebook's Virtual Reality Boy Wonder Departs
Wall Street Journal (subscription)
Facebook Inc. said Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of Oculus VR who had been sidelined for several months after a series of scandals, is leaving the company. Mr. Luckey's last day at Oculus, the virtual reality startup Facebook acquired three years ago, ...
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Facebook's Virtual Reality Boy Wonder Departs - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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