Total Recall -- Day 5

The team continued to work on designs of the robot.  Teams worked in small groups.  Each team worked on the entire robot.  Supper was donated by Chipotle for the entire team.  Student leaders left around 5:15 to pick up supper.  They did not return until nearly 6:30 due to problems with the order not being ready.  This left team to work within their small groups without much direct instruction and/or redirection by student leadership.  The design groups seemed to have lost focus on the purpose of the activity.  After the meal, teams presented their designs.  Many of the designs were vague in many aspects while focusing very much on one or two aspects.

Lessons learned included

• Student leadership must be present to help with direction of the team
• The entire team should not be involved in the design of the robot
• Students are struggling with the concept of designing the robot to meet all the criteria in the scoring strategy
• I should work more on student leadership skills and expectations
• The numbers of the program will require restructuring in the future
• Student leadership structure should already be in place with subteams identified
• In addition, students should know what subteam they are working under

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Total Recall - Day 6

This day proved to be a little frustrating but progress was made on the design. Discussions of strategy have moved into designs but most of the designs still prove to be incomplete.  Many of the small groups have focused on one or two features of the robot rather than the whole robot.  Groups began to make prototypes of pieces with cardstock, tape and staples.  Several groups had to be refocused on a number of occasions due to getting off task.  Most of these behaviors were just seemingly random conversations that led away from the task at hand.  Some groups chose to utilize materials in the shop to do some testing to see how the game pieces acted in certain situations while others just made assumptions on how the pieces would interact with the robot.  A few students applied some basic physics to make some calculations to assist in designing and evaluating their design.  

Team structure was discussed between David and several of the mentors.  He has continued to try and place individuals in sub team leadership roles.  The structure is coming together.  He also moved from group to group to ask questions about their designs and to help keep them focused on the process of designing.   

Jonny worked with Scott on the RobotC installation. Sometimes this proves difficulty due to the school computer have DeepFreeze on them.  This software resets the image of the computer each time it is turned off to an original state.  The software must be turned off so we can install software and sometimes it interferes with how the software interacts with the programming interface.  Scott worked with Jonny on the controls and interface as well as the software on the computer.

In the presentations from the small design groups, many teams focused on one of two aspects of the game.  Both of those aspects proved to be third or fourth in priority for our scoring strategy.  Team discussion at the end of the evening revolved around what was done for priority one and two.  If we could not do priority one, we could not score a single point in the contest.  If priority two could not be accomplished, the scoring strategy becomes much less effective by making the jobs of all three workers in the system much more difficult and task oriented.   

The team will not work on Friday, although the robotics II students will meet in class.  Discussion in class will revolve around Saturday's activities and the evaluation of Thursday nights progress and setbacks.  

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Total Recall -- Day 3

Wow, what a day in the shop for Westlake Robotics.  It started in the class with discussion of the new possible strategy.  The assignment for the day was to discuss the three possible strategies we felt were available.  The classes were divided up into three groups.  Each group was to evaluate a specific strategy.  The evaluation included a timeline, expected score with the strategy, how easy it would be to build a robot for this strategy, how easy would it be to drive as a driver, pros and cons of the overall strategy and any other key notes or ideas. 

School was out and the madness began.  It seemed as if the room were going to explode with the number of students that came into the room.  In addition to the students coming to work on the BEST contest, the FTC team came up to work on their contest as well.  

Groups broke up into the three independent strategies to continue the evaluation and discussion of the strategies.  We had groups in the shop, the classroom and in the halls.  Excitement was in the air as the groups begin to form and discuss their strategy.  Each grouped use the game Excel Spreadsheet to assist in score prediction. 

The entire group was brought back together in the classroom.  Students were in chairs, on table tops and the floor while the presentations were given.  Each group gave a presentation which included a timeline on the whiteboard, expected score as well as an explanation of the difficulty of building the robot and learning to drive it.  After each group had presented, the entire group asked questions in regards to the presentations of each strategy.  The group began to discuss and list Pros and Cons of each strategy on the board with each point being discussed.  

The team worked until supper arrived.  Parents delivered the meal for the 50 or so people who were present.

After the meal, the team decided upon the one strategy we would pursue with our robot.  It was fairly easy to come to a decision based on the presentations of the evaluations provided by the teams.  The remaining students broke up into design groups to begin to develop ideas for the robot to perform the strategy.  

At the end of the meeting, a group of the student team leads discussed leadership positions with the team. The team will be divided into three sub teams:  Robot, Media and Community.  Each of these teams will have a leader who will place leadership positions under them for each additional sub-team.  

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Total Recall -- Day 3

The team did not meet officially today due to Open House at Westlake HIgh School, but students chose to meet and discuss the contest.  I had students coming into the classroom starting at the beginning of 8th period and it continued up until Open House began at 6:30.  One group of 10 students stayed in the shop to discuss, debate, brainstorm and theorize about the contest.  If was great for the parents and the high school administration to witness the students choosing to work on their own for the contest and the team.  The group in the shop was composed of students that represented all types of students on the team:  

• First year Robotics I students from this year with no experience on the team or in robotics
• Robotics II students - the contest is an extension of the class and a required participation
• Ex Robotics II who are not enrolled in any robotics class this year but are very active in leadership roles, one of which is the first four year student in our program
• Robotics III students - students who are enrolled in ISM with mentorship from mentors on our robotics team
• Non Robotics class students who have chosen to participate on the team

These students primarily spent time discussing strategy and potential designs to fit each strategy.  The discussion included drawings on the windows with erasable markers to demonstrate ideas to each other.  

No decisions were made in regards to strategy or design of the robot but respect was earned by some of those individuals with student team leads.  It was also very apparent to the parents that the students was engaged in the process and very motivated as individuals.  

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Total Recall - Day 2

 We met this afternoon since we will not be able to meet on Monday night.  Monday night is Open House for Westlake High School.  David and Lauren ran the meeting and discussions. David made a small presentation to the group concerning team structure, student leadership and purpose of the meeting for the day.  

The group discussed any questions they had on the games rules and descriptions.  It was hard to keep the team focused on the task at hand.  Several times, someone would bring up a design feature or description of the robot.  Lots of discussions of rules interpretations and definitions.  Definitions of game pieces and the field have seemed hard to keep clear at this point. The group focused on a strategy and what we would attempt in each round along with a time line.  The formula for the scoring was discussed at length to explain the importance of each portion of it.  It became very clear using the scoring sheet what we felt was best for us to attempt in each round. 

Grant proposed a scoring strategy with a time line.  Discussions arose over how long it would take for each part of the round.  I volunteered to be the robot for demonstration purposes for Grant and the team.  The team designated landmarks in the classroom that represented the course. Grant gave me instructions to perform that represented actions of his scoring strategy.  The time was recorded for each me to complete each action.  After each action, discussion ensued about the time taken and how effective our robot would be in performing the action.  Students from last year team had good input on the time it would take based on observations of last year's robot in the contest.  Shelby recorded the actions and the predicted times for each action.  The team discussed how the score would change according to different scenarios as well as the order of the steps of the robot actions.  The scenario gave the team the ability to evaluate the game and contest in a visual way as well as comparing it to the time in the round.  The actions of the robot strategy were decided upon.  David and Lauren led the team in the Robot Will, Robot Might and Robot Will not activity.

Students were given the task to begin to work on designs that fit the strategy of the robot.  These designs should be done in small groups rather than as an individual.  The designs should also include the motors, servos, methods of performing each task, etc.  

David is going to write up the Robot Strategy the team decided upon and share it in Google Docs with the team.  David closed the meeting with having a small meeting with students who are interested in working in team leadership positions.  

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2010 BEST Robotics Contest Kickoff - Total Recall

The countdown has begun.  Day one Today was the beginning of the BEST Robotics Kickoff for 2010.  Total Recall is name of the game this year. The kickoff was held at Pfluegerville Connally High School.  The kickoff consisted of workshops, game reveal and kit of parts pickup.  Scott McMahon, our lead Mentor, delivered a workshop on RobotC for VEX.  We had the largest number of students in attendance Westlake has ever had. The event last nearly all day since the workshops were 2 hours long.  The game was setup all day for teams to look at.  There was lots of speculation. This year represents the 10th anniversary for Capital BEST.  Capital BEST was responsible for designing the game this year.   

Teams took a break for lunch and returned for Kit of Parts Pickup and Inventory.  Lots of changes this year in store for the BEST Contest.  The control system is the VEX Cortex Microcontroller and VEXnet Joystick.  Teams will be able to program with EacyC or RobotC as well as use MathLAB Simulink.  Teams also received the SolidWorks  for 5 months along with InspirTech SolidWorks curriculum software.  In addition to the VEX control system, the Kit of parts also has some changes.  Our kit has new motors, motor interface connectors and numbers of servos.  

The game was revealed after a short video explaining the contest and a guest speaker.  Teams were introduced to the game concepts in the video and then moved to the filed for the demonstration as well as Q and A.

Our team loaded our materials up and headed back to the shop for discussion.  Each member of the team received a packet of rules for the Game as well as the Generic rules.  We spent time reading over the rules, discussing the rules and definitions.  The game has a large number of terms to keep straight and learn.  David and Sean lead the meeting with the students.  Sean reiterated the fact that reading the rules is so very important.  

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Girl Scout Organizes Robotics Camp For Underprivileged Youth - Community News Story - KSAT San Antonio

Girl Scout Organizes Robotics Camp For Underprivileged Youth

Teen Runs Camp For Gold Star Award Project

Eileen Gonzales, KSAT 12 News Reporter

POSTED: Friday, August 6, 2010

UPDATED: 5:22 pm CDT August 6, 2010

SAN ANTONIO -- While most teens have summer dreams of beaches and shopping malls, 17-year-old Haley Demos had the vision of organizing a robotics camp for underprivileged children.

Watch Eileen Gonzales' Report

"I figured that I would hold a camp for young kids to get introduced to science technology, engineering and mathematics for kids who can't really afford it," she said.

Demos organized the camp as part of her Girl Scouts Gold Award Project. It's the highest ranking for a Girl Scout and equivalent to the Boy Scouts' Eagle Scout ranking.

The project had to benefit the community and she had to do every bit of planning herself.

"I've been working on it for two months, probably (for) more than 250 hours, (in) every spare moment that I have," said Demos.

During the five-day camp, kids build and program robots using science, engineering and math skills, she said. They then put the the robots to the test on an obstacle course.

Judging from the response, it was a big hit.

"It's been really fun," said 10-year-old Alyssa Snow. "I really like this because, one, I get to meet new people and two, I get to do math and science which are the two things I love about school."

"I really like it," 8-year-old Adrian Langley said. "I want to be an engineer when I grow up."

Demos said she sacrificed her summer for the project. She said it almost didn't happen, however. She said her appendix burst two and half weeks ago, but she recovered just in time.

Next, she said she'll present the project to a Girl Scout council for approval.

However, she said she feels she's already received a lasting reward.

"It's all been worth it just to see the smiles on the kids' faces," she said.

Copyright 2010 by KSAT.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

via ksat.com

Great story from San Antonio passed on to me from Joel Adkins, Technology Director for Kerrville ISD in Kerrville, Texas.

We need more students to take charge such as Haley Demos has done in organizing a robotics camp for underprivileged students. I wonder where she got the itch for STEM?

Please pass this onto students who you know are looking for projects, ideas and/or programs to participate in. Do you think colleges/ universities will be interested in a person such as Haley?

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