Monthly Archives: May 2017

INDIANAPOLIS -- When Pleasant Run Elementary in Indianapolis decided to launch a competitive robotics team last fall, coach Lisa Hopper said she had one goal and one goal only: to avoid humiliation.

"I said, 'I hope we don't embarrass ourselves, and if that happens I'll be a happy coach,'" Hopper said.

CBS News

The school is in a high-poverty neighborhood, so the kids don't have many resources. And her 4th grade team didn't know the first thing about robotics.

Nevertheless, the Pleasant Run Pantherbots began studying and then designing a robot to complete the assigned task. In the beginning there were a few successes -- and a lot of failures.

Although the kids say the biggest disappointment had nothing to do with their robot. At one of their first matches, an adult in the crowd heckled a Hispanic teammate, told him to "go back to Mexico."

The Pleasant Run Pantherbots team

CBS News

"I don't know why they did that," the boy said.

"That was actually kind of hurtful for them to say that," said a student.

The incident was demoralizing, but far from debilitating. In fact, it only made the kids work harder and stay after school later.

"I was so mad 'cause that happened, but I was actually kind of glad because we beat their butts," one of the kids said.

That's a poetic way of saying they channeled that insult into a victory at the city tournament. They went on to win at state, too. And just last week competed in the world championships in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Pantherbots at the national championship

CBS News

They didn't win it all, but they made it to the final round. Hardly the humiliation their coach had feared.

"They started with nothing and created something fantastic," Hopper said.

The kids are all now talking about technical careers. Someday they may build incredible robots. But for now their greatest contribution remains purely human.

"All of our team, everybody in America, it's gotta be mixed. It's a melting pot," one said.

To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, email us: OnTheRoad@cbsnews.com.

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Indiana kids defy the odds on their school robotics team - CBS News

The Red Hook High School robotics team took home an award after competing at the FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics World Championships. Wochit

Red Hook High School seniors Colin Pierce, Daniel Monarchi and Benjamin Kocik, members of the the Varsity Robot Drive Team, stand with robot Talos. The school's robotics team competed at the FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics World Championships this year.(Photo: Courtesy photo/Yvonne Pierce)

The Red Hook High School robotics team took home an award after competing at the FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics World Championships.

The RoboRaiders were"one of only a handful of teams from New York and among128 teams" fromthe U.S. and 10 foreign countries to compete at the event, which was held inSt. Louis, Missouri in late April, the Red Hook Central School District said in a statement.

The student-run team, which consists of 15 high school students,placed 30th out of 64 teams in their divisionand won a discretionary Judges'Award for outstanding community service.

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"The judges were particularly impressed by this team that interrupted their robot build for over a month in order to improve a motorized transportation solution for a pre-school student at their school with congenital mobility impairment," the district said.

Since September, the students have been working to design, buildand program a robot for this year's Velocity Vortex competition, according to the district. They also performed more than 800 hours of community service to promoteScience, Technology, Engineering,and Math (STEM) education.

"I've only been part of the RoboRaiders for a year, but already I've learned a great deal,"said freshman Alexandra Snyder. "Our team has worked so hard this season, and when we found out that we were going to the world championships, we were so excited. It was almost surreal."

"This is the best robot we have made, compared to the last four years' versions," said senior Ben Kocik. "To see the team advance to this level of competition is huge."

The team is coached by Red Hook High School science teachers Yvonne Pierce and Dwane Decker; IBM employees Stephen Kocik and Susan Zichittella are volunteer mentors.

"In my experience, (the robotics team)provides more exposure to STEM, leadership, teamworkand overall business than most single activities in college, while building a foundation for high school students to do the work themselves,"Zichittella said.

The RoboRaiders, fundedprimarily by local sponsors, is seeking donations to help offset the cost of attending the world championships. Donations can be made at http://www.GoFundMe.com/FTC6567.

Nina Schutzman: nschutzman@poughkeepsiejournal.com, 845-451-4518 Twitter: @pojonschutzman

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Red Hook robotics team wins award at world championships - Poughkeepsie Journal

Michele Lamkin knew at the start of the season that she was coachinga special group of talented kids.

Lamkin, who is one of two coaches for theLaurel Highlands Education and Robotics Team, Robotic Doges,said last week proved her right.

Robotic Doges competed in the2017 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) World Championship in St. Louisand made it to the tournaments final four.

The Holsopple-based robotics team was among 128 teams competing to be crowned the tournaments champion.

The week at worlds was a phenomenal experience for the team, Lamkin said.

Beyond the robot competition, the team members had the chance to meet students from 19 different countries, witness technology demonstrations, learn about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) career options and enjoy some fun together after a long season of hard work.

It was a fantastic way for students to broaden their horizons, she said.

After winning twoout of threesemi-final matches, Robotic Doges allied with teams from New York City and Bucharest, Romania, forthe division finals.Their alliance was defeated by the alliance thatultimately won the event.

It was very fun, and it was cool meeting all of the other teams there, said James Lamkin, a junior atConemaugh Township Area High School.

It was thrilling to see our robot progress through the week and win matches against some of the best teams in the world, he said.

It was verysurreal.

Our goal was to get to worlds, and we pulled it off, he said.

It was a lot of hard work, but we got there.

In addition to making it to the division finals, Robotic Doges was among six finalists nominated for the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award.

Theaward is given to the team that has the most innovative and creative robot design solution to any or all specific field elements or components in the FIRST Tech Challenge.

Elements consideredinclude elegant design, robustness and out of the box thinking related to design.

Lamkinsaid, Making it to the final four and being nominated for the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award reinforced to the students that they can attain high goals with hard work, even when they come from a rural community which might seem on the surface to not have as many opportunities that urban areas offer.

I am very proud of the team members for putting in long hours this season and for raising the standard of goals they wanted to attain, she said.

These are all skills that will be useful for life.

Ronald Fisher is a reporter for The Tribune-Democrat. Follow him on Twitter @FisherSince_82.

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Robotics team glows at world championship - TribDem.com

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TEMPERANCE Bedford High Schools robotics team added another notch to its belt at the FIRST Robotics World Championship in St. Louis.

Although the Express didnt repeat its 2015 success of capturing a world title, the team did go home with one of the most prestigious pieces of recognition up for grabs: the Engineering Inspiration Award.

The award recognizes outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a teams school and community, and automatically qualifies them for next years world championship event in Detroit. NASA will also pick up the tab for next years $5,000 registration fee.

It was very surprising and probably one of the best feelings Ive ever had at a robotics competition, said senior Olivia Miller, who serves as electronics captain. I know the amount of effort we put into that award was all worth it. Its really exciting knowing our team is going to worlds next year because of our efforts.

Coach Debbie May said more than 120 teams were up for the award.

The Express made it out of the qualifying round at the tournament last weekend, finishing 16th. They teamed with the WildStangs from Arlington Heights, Ill., and Gompei and the HERD from Worcester, Mass., to form their alliance.

As the 8th-ranked alliance, Bedfords group had to face the top-ranked alliance in the first elimination round match.

The matches are three versus three, so its always a little dependent on luck and how good the other teams are that youre with, Ms. May said. We were not always partnered with teams who were able to perform the same [as us], so it made it a little tough.

Bedfords alliance won the first match in the best-of-three series, but dropped the final two. One of the teams on the opposing alliance from Greenville, Texas, has won multiple world championships.

A former member of the Express is interning there, and serves as a mentor to the team.

We were 16th in our division and beat one of the best teams in the world, senior and build captain Charlie Cook said. Overall, we performed very well. It was a fun match.

This years FIRST gameplay theme was steamworks. The object of each match was to make an airship take flight by retrieving gears with your robot.

Once 13 gears were placed, four rotors on top of the airship began to spin.

There was something that involved climbing a rope that was four or five feet high, said senior Sam Synowka, a member of the drive team. Sometimes robots would climb and it would either fail to stay up or the rope would break, so the robot would fall.

The Express had a 100 percent success rate in climbing the rope, which was the final step of this years matches.

Teams are given six weeks before the competition season begins to build their robots. During that time, most students log more than 200 hours perfecting their machine.

This coming weekend will be the first one theyve had free since January, Ms. May said. Its going to be hard to let go of this class. We always say its not just about the robot; the robot is the vehicle to get these kids inspired. Thats the type of thing that keeps me invested in this program.

Contact Jay Skebba at:jskebba@theblade.com,419-376-9414, or on Twitter @JaySkebbaBlade.

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Bedford High robotics team inspires - Toledo Blade

In the Errol Morris documentaryFast, Cheap &Out of Control,robotic scientist Rodney Brooks predicted a future where sensors and robots would be pervasive, and people could simply tell a door to open. That was 1997.

Brooks prognostication has now come to pass. Voice control and the Internet of Things are here. Robots, or artificial creatures as he sometimes has called them, are growing ever more intelligent.

Thanks to Brooks and the companies hes founded, robots go to work on a daily basis alongside people in our homes and on our factory floors. If you care about robots, at all, Brooks the entrepreneur, MIT professor and author is no doubt a familiar name to you.If not, heres a recap of some of his more commercial achievements: He co-founded a company called iRobot that created the vacuum-cleaning Roomba robot and military robots used to disarm explosives; he also started Rethink Robotics, whose newest Sawyer robots are used to do dull, dirty and dangerous tasksin manufacturing, leaving people to more interesting workthats less likely to physically hurt them.

Brooks companies arent the only ones focusing on making robots smarter, safer and more collaborative with people and each other. But his work has inspired generations of robotics engineers, and helped themfind a path to success outside of academia and defense.

Brooks will be joining us onstage at Disrupt NY. Well ask him what it will take tomake the robots of science fiction into reality, howhe thinks robotics will make the greatest impact on humanity in his lifetime and more.

Check out the agenda here.

You can still get tickets to Disrupt NY, which takes place at Manhattans Pier 36 May 15-17. See you there!

Sponsors make TechCrunch events possible. If youre interested in learning more about sponsorships with TechCrunch, send a message to our sponsor team here.

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Rethink Robotics and iRobot founder Rod Brooks is coming to Disrupt NY - TechCrunch

Jewish students recently enjoyed working with their classmates in teams while participating in the first Miami Jewish Day School Robotics Festival at Scheck Hillel Community School in North Miami Beach.

This festival was hosted by the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education in Miami in collaboration with the Yerucham Science Center in Israel and showcased the technological creations of students from Scheck Hillel and the Hebrew Academy (RASG) and Lehrman Community Day School, both in Miami Beach. All three schools are first-year participants in the Miami Jewish Day School Robotics Program, an innovative approach to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education that combines mathematics and science with Lego education and enables participating third- and fourth-grade students to grasp robotics principles and work collaboratively to solve problems.

This program is funded through a $40,000 grant from the Miami/Yerucham Partnership, a collaboration between the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and its Israeli partnership city of Yerucham, and facilitated by CAJE, a subsidiary agency of the Federation.

Valerie Mitrani, CAJE's director of day school strategy and initiatives, said the recent festival was exciting.

"It was really the culmination of a year with lots of exciting learning in the schools and it was our first attempt to do something like this and we were very pleased with the results."

Mitrani noted that the students were engaged and excited. She mentioned that CAJE and the Miami/Yerucham Partnership are working to expand this program to all Federation-supported Jewish day schools in Miami-Dade County.

Asaf Shalev, deputy manager of Yerucham Science Center, was impressed with the local students' level of understanding.

"They reached a really high level of building the robots and understanding the way to create the code, so I was quite happy and impressed with the work that was done."

Eli Fischbach, third grade student at Scheck Hillel, said about the program and festival, "I learned how to code at school and loved practicing for the festival with all my friends and with the team from Yerucham who helped with the program."

Samantha Cedrati, a fourth grade student at Scheck Hillel who was one of five students from her grade who volunteered her time to come after school to learn this and help out, said about the festival, "It was really fun, and I think working as a team is better than working on your own because if you make a mistake, your team can help you figure it out and maybe help you build something even better than what you would build on your own."

Scheck Hillel educators Nancy Penchev, I Lab instructor, and Nilam Patel, lower school science teacher, thought the students were able to gain the value of teamwork through this program and festival.

"They were working together and helping one another," Patel said.

Penchev said, "One of the things I try to instill in our students is that failure is just temporary."

"We're learning from our failures and they demonstrated that tremendously. I told them over and over how proud I was of them because nobody gave up."

Craig Carpentieri, the school's chief academic officer, said that the program is "an opportunity for our children to really explore their passions."

Several third grade students from Hebrew Academy expressed their festival excitement.

"We thought we were a very good team and while we were there we were so welcomed," said Hebrew Academy third grade student Caleb Gdanski.

Genie Bensimon, Hebrew Academy's third grade general studies teacher, said, "The students were very dedicated and worked very well."

Rabbi Avi Bossewitch, the school's dean of academic affairs, noted that through the program, he's seen a "surge of energy, momentum and excitement" at the Hebrew Academy.

Fourth grade students from Lehrman were also interviewed about their festival experiences, but the school asked that their last names not be disclosed.

Ethan said, "It was fun and exciting to work in a team."

Liza said, "I like having team members because whenever I needed help, some people helped me."

Julian said, "My favorite part was when you're on a table, and you have a little amount of time, you may get all stressed out, but at the end, you do it well."

Leah said, "It's so exciting because you don't know what the judges are going to think of what you programmed and everything, so you try to do your best."

Ilana Traub, Lehrman's media and technology specialist, said regarding the festival, "I think it was a great culmination for what they have learned throughout the year."

Jodi Bruce, head of school, noted that one of the nice qualities of the program is that Yerucham "brought all of their expertise, trained their teachers for a week and even gave more of their time as they came down."

Read more here:

Teamwork demonstrated at robotics festival - Sun Sentinel