“Classroom teacher utilizing robotics and robotics contest to interest students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math”Created and curated by Norman Morgan
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Members of the Rutgers Formula Racing Team, (from left) Umur Selek, Omar Ashraf and Derek Horton, work on the team's competition car on the Busch campus. / Jason Towlen/STAFF
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-->-->NEW BRUNSWICK — In 2009, the Rutgers Formula Racing Team was broke and running out of time.
The recession had kept many of its sponsors from supporting the team, which each year builds an open wheel, open cockpit racing car to compete with cars built by other engineering students around the world.
Some of those teams enjoy rich sponsorships from major players in the automotive industry that yield upwards of $100,000 a year in funding in the United States. A German team once netted $250,000.
The Rutgers team receives about $8,000 in fees from engineering students, $4,000 from the engineering school to compete in two events and some cash and free services donated by private companies, such as Sunoco and Sport Honda Powerhouse of Metuchen. The total budget including the donated services is between $20,000 and $25,000.
But the donations fell so low two years ago that the students had to dig deep. Team members came up with $10,000 from their own pockets, team members and the team's staff adviser said.
It paid off. Rutgers came in third in design that year out of about 120 teams from around the world, a huge podium finish given the relatively low amount of financing the team sees.
Abhir Adhate, a senior this year and the team's technical lead, used a credit card to come up with $1,000 in 2009, he said.
But for Adhate, the money was an investment.
He received an internship with Pratt & Whitney that year, based largely on his work on the car. The Connecticut company designs, manufactures and services aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines.
Students in colleges and universities have been participating in activities such as these for decades. For 20 years now, FIRST robotics has been providing an equivalent challenge and opportunity to high school students. Programs such as these need to be integrated into more high school and middle school programs.
Waving the Flag for Engineers Everywhere
March/22/2011 at 12:03 pm
As an engineer for GM, Dave Verbrugge has been involved in getting some exciting technology on the road like the active air shutter that is now used on the Chevrolet Cruze ECO model to enable it to get 42 mpg highway. In addition to a management degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he also has engineering degrees from Calvin College, the University of Michigan and Purdue University. But just because he’s an accomplished engineer doesn’t mean he walks around with a pocket protector and a too-short tie. When you see him at the Michigan FIRST Robotics Competition events, he’s usually in the middle of the field, stalking and talking, pointing his finger, jogging from one end to the other and waving team flags. All the time he’s firing up the spectators who have crowded into the gyms to see high school students pit their robots against one another.
Dave with two members of his FIRST Robotics team in 1997
Dave got involved with FIRST Robotics Competition back in 1997. He mentored the students on Team #67 which includes the Huron Valley (Michigan) school district. FIRST was launched in 1992 by inventor Dean Kamen who wanted to get more students interested in careers in science and technology. Dave was among the first GM engineers to step up and volunteer his time to help the students. Now 15 years into his commitment he’s still doing it and you can hear the pride in his voice as he says, “We’ve had a number of students go on to engineering careers up to Michigan Tech, Kettering (University,) University of Michigan and a number of them now are GM engineers.”
Students are fortunate to have mentors such as Dave Verbrugge to volunteer time for teams such as HOT.
As a high school basketball coach, I never had one professional basketball coach spend a day at practice with my students, give them their personal email address or phone number. I currently have professional coaches for my robotics team -- they are called mentors, yes that is right mentors. They mentor the students at Westlake High School in our robotics contests such as BEST, FIRST Technical Challenge, FIRST Robotics Challenge, FIRST LEGO League and Texas Computers Educators Robotics Challenges.
These individuals spend time with the students as they prepare for the contest. They come into the shop after they have worked a full day at their full time job to help the students with projects related to the contest robots such as designing, prototyping and building of robots. In addition some of the mentors work with the students in areas such as programming, website design, marketing, photography, fund raising, outreach and time/project management. The students learn from professionals how to approach and solve problems. The answers to problems and questions are not read from a book but many times come from careful evaluation and planning to come up with a solution.
Thank you to my mentors and the investment they make each and every day. The impact is so profound and far reaching. Individuals such as Dave mentioned above are changing our students on a daily basis. In the troubled times of education systems these days, we need more shining stars such as Dave. The mentors for my team are Scott McMahon, Linda McMahon, Joe Hershberger, Michael Watson, Tim Ousley, Miguel DeLeon, Bob Witowski, Joyce Witowski, Rebecca Phillips, Laura Dutton, John Pflueger, George Celniker, Tim Jordan and Dona Jordan.
If you have mentors such as these, be thankful and give them a special handshake, hug or little appreciation the next time you see them. If you are interested in how to become involved, please email me at coach.norm@gmail.com.
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