FRC 2012 Game Rebound Rumble - The Year Minds Change

If you had a full night of sleep last night, you are not likely involved in the FIRST Robotics Competition. This year's build season is underway with Rebound Rumble and as always the game designers did a great job sparking innovation and coopertition. Check out the video below for a quick overview of the game:

Robotics has a cult like following with teams staying up late into the night for weeks on end to create the best robot while learning skills and gaining knowledge usually withheld until university and beyond. Students have just a few short weeks to create robots capable moving across a field and accurately launching basketballs into a hoop, a feat overwhelming even without time, money, and engineering constraints.

For over 20 years, robotics has made a positive and powerful impact on students and the engineering community, but the wrong lesson to take from this is that we should have robotics teams in every school and require engineering for everyone. Sure, I would love to see a team in every school so the opportunity is open to people who want it, but top down standardization would kill the spirit and fun. Robotics' appeal comes from its grassroots underground and playful nature.

I claim 2012 to be the year "minds change" because I believe the momentum has come to a head with all of the opportunities for students to learn and society's perception of their potential. Those who watched the kickoff event saw engineers, CEOs, celebrities, presidents and more come out to support the students. What the world is realizing is, students are capable of doing anything with the right resources and motivation. Educators are determined to give their students more than a lecture and a worksheet. Robots are a great example of this, but students are having an impact in every aspect of society.

Go to a robotics competition and be inspired and hooked. Mentor a robotics team or any program that fits your passions. There is nothing like an after school program to change a student's life.

To all of the teams out there competiting: good luck, have fun, and remember the learning is the prize!

To the mentors: may your coffee cups be full, your pizza be plentiful, and your joy abundant!

To everyone else, go find a team and check out the amazing work being done at schools all over the world!


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Keeping Plates Spinning is The Best Part of The Job

A couple of years ago, someone asked me if Robotics could be done in a hybrid learning environment. Could we do a hands-on project with a combination of virtual meetings as well as physical meetings. At the time, I didn't have a great answer because I had no reason to explore the possibility. I was running my robotics team and focusing on doing everything possible to help the team do well.

That changed this year when I decided to take a year to go work for Google. My student robotics president looked at me with horror as I told her the news that I would not be there next year. Then after a minute of thought she said, "Oh wait, never mind we'll be fine." It was a fulfillment of something I tell my leadership team all of the time, "I will have done my job when you no longer need me."

This was the ultimate test, could they succeed without their teacher being there with them everyday? Let me start by defining success for my team. I know many mentors who's goal in life is for their robotics team to win, win, win! I want the best robot our team can possibly make but that is not my only focus as their mentor. My goal is to help them fulfill their goals and make their dreams possible.

That looks different for each student and it is my job to help them find it and then work with intense fervor to make it possible for them. Mentoring each student individually is what I call it keeping plates spinning because it is exciting, requires one to see the big picture, and also focus on each individual. Some of my students want to go into a STEM related job, but others want to be businesspeople, graphic designers, teachers, and the list goes on. If you visit my team there are many different projects going on at once. That is because if I find someone who I think I can mentor I find a niche for them on the team because it is not just about building robots, it is about building people.

I am so grateful that Lisa Davis is able to serve as the physical mentor watching out for the well being of the team while also helping them explore and grow in marketing, entrepreneurship, and service learning. If she was not willing to take on the additional responsibilities this year, there would be no team. It would have been impossible for me to virtually mentor the team a few years ago but with daily emails and weekly Google+ Hangouts I can talk to my team and support the individuals.

All year long I am looking at students to see where they have areas to grow. My decisions on who should lead our team are not necessarily based on who is a "leader" on the team but who could become a leader. Each of my presidents have been shocked when I asked them to step up but each time they have exceeded all expectations.

Presidents are chosen in their Sophomore year. I let the current president know who I have chosen and they usually disagree with me. That's ok, I have expected and planned for this. I don't select for talent but potential.

The reason the student is chosen in the Sophomore year is so they can serve as President in their Junior year while being mentored by the previous President who's now in their Senior year. When others teams chose their seniors to be leaders, the skills and lessons are lost each year. With this process, the previous President can spend the whole year reflecting on the experience helping the new President through their struggles.

This has resulted in an ever increasing improvement in our team and what it is able to achieve. I also select Presidents based upon what they are able to learn from the outgoing President and vice versa. Sometimes it is humility, or organization skills, maybe public speaking skills. I have the luxury of focusing on helping people grow.

Could we not do this with mainstream education? Teachers are repeating themselves multiple times a day, and again each year for 40+ years. This is horribly inefficient, let students teach students and have the teacher support the process. The inexperienced students will learn more easily from their peers and the teacher can look for ways to challenge the tutors and grow in their own understanding. Imagine advanced classes happening concurrently with regular classes within the same classroom!

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Cyberpatriot Student Competition Teaches IT Skills

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Learning occurs when there is motivation and resources, we prove this every time we get on YouTube. Students have so much competing for their cognitive surplus that many educators drive themselves nuts trying to compete with highly interactive video games, tv, or social networking. This is where the head fake comes in. While not coined by him, Randy Pausch brought this term into the education world when he referred to ALICE as a way for students to make stories and videos while learning Java Programming. While Robotics provides an excellent challenge for builders, programmers, etc, it is not frequent enough throughout the year so I sought out another way my students could get valuable computing skills.

Luckily, the Air Force Association brought it to my attention that they host a competition called CyberPatriot to encourage students to learn about IT, Networking, and Programming skills. This program began a couple of years ago when it was identified that our global community needs users who are aware of how to properly defend their computers and networks against cyber attacks such as viruses, phishing, and identity theft. Furthermore, there is a need for trained professionals to defend our larger infrastructure against cyberwarfare.

CyberPatriot involves groups of 5 or so students defending their computers against simulated attacks. These attacks occur within a virtual machine so they are harmless to the actual computer but students must defend themselves nonetheless and earn points for their team based upon how quickly and capably they do so. Check out the following promotional video for more info:

The registration cost is $350, but assuming you own a computer, that is all that you need to start a team and compete. All of the training resources and software is free and can be found at http://www.highschoolcdc.com/. While programming and engineering are too often neglected in our schools, IT, networking, and hacking have it all the more difficult. Students who learn these valuable skills are far too often labeled as criminals or thwarted by their schools IT department. But, this would be the perfect program to ask your school's IT manager to be a mentor. They would be given the recognition for all of the hard work they deserve, have eager students willing to learn, and be able to perhaps provide resources or practice scenarios. 

Mentors are hard to find for this program and the books explaining it clearly are even more scarce, which is why we need programs like this to flourish. When FIRST Robotics began 25 years ago, it struggled to gain a foothold in schools and gain the interest of companies. Cyberpatriot is just getting started and your students can be in it from the beginning. This is another opportunity for your students to have fun and learn skills that are highly applicable to the real world and translate into a career, please consider starting a Cyberpatriot team!

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Learning Opportunities Come From Passion - A Student's Perspective

Victor was in my Freshman Math/Physics class. I was much more traditional then than I am now and although he did well in my class he was extremely bored. This plus other factors led me to deeply question my classroom and curriculum practices. Although he is a Junior now, his accomplishments dwarf that of many adults. He has embraced what Patrick and I talk about in terms of learning potential and is an amazing example of what is possible. He leaves for his Junior Internship tomorrow and I asked him before he left to share his thoughts with us:

Hello, I am Victor and I am a Junior. I am part of the school’s robotics team led by Phil which many of you probably know as the writer of this blog, you probably also know Patrick Yurick as a contributor to the Broken Airplane, but to me he is my mentor/publisher for the Graphic Novel Project. The things you learn through these courses are things that some people have to wait until their Senior year in college to learn. 


I have done a crazy variety of things ranging from creating a virtual world, to taking part in the San Diego Comic-Con as a professional. Both of these courses are amazing in their own ways, sometimes even in the same ways, but being part of both of them allows you to be able to pull information from separate sides of a spectrum and everything in between.


In robotics I have been able to learn many different skills including programming, building and designing. My first year I worked on the VEX robot as a builder/programmer, I was able to understand several different concepts important to programmers, for example, troubleshooting and universal commands like: if, else, while. 


In my second year, me and another student, Anthony created a virtual park in which I was introduced to the open-source animation/game engine Blender and scripting software, Python. Together we stayed countless hours after school to finish the program which we were able to take all the way up to Washington D.C. to present at the first National Science fair. We were able to stand next to professionals proudly presenting our project as Sophomores. This year I am back on building and we are taking a much more professional approach to the construction of the robot. I created three different robot designs and am currently working on a proof of concept. Robotics has made me realize that I really enjoy creating games and it is at the top of my “Majors I am considering” list.


I have also had a fair amount of success in the Graphic Novel Project. I have learned and mastered most of the Adobe Creative Suite CS3 because it is what we mostly use to ink/color our comics. I have become extremely proficient in Photoshop up to the point which I know what EVERY button does. Last year everyone in the project had to create their own comic. I discovered that I actually enjoy drawing and I might actually want to draw as a hobby or maybe a profession later on in life, something that had never crossed my mind, I have already had my first “Professional” job designing a t-shirt for Eco-Vivarium. I would have never been able to accept the job without the knowledge that the Graphic Novel Project has given me.


Being part of these two amazing groups has allowed me to absorb many valuable skills and given me many once in a lifetime chances some people would kill to obtain. The best part about these things is that the following years people will get a chance to live through the same experiences I have gone through. We already have a spot in the 2012 annual Science Fair and San-Diego Comic Con. Hopefully people will be able to pull as much information as I have.


Victor is a wonderful person and brilliant in his own right, but he would be the first to say  that everyone is capable of doing these amazing things if given the opportunity. Robotics and the Graphic Novel Project were born out of Patrick and my passion for these things. What are you passionate about and how can you provide incredible learning opportunities for your students? The world will be changed by those who are passionate and share that passion with others!

The World Was Inspired at The FIRST World Championship in St Louis

What an amazing end to this year's FIRST Robotics Competition! Teams of Students receive the game at Kickoff and then have 6 weeks to design, build, and program a robot from scratch. Then the robots are shipped to the regional competitions to play against other teams to win the most points and demonstrate how they have inspired other students to pursue STEM careers. Those who exceed expectations are awarded the opportunity to go to the FRC World Championship in St. Louis, Missouri.

This year's FIRST World Championship, was an exceptional year. In the 20th year of FIRST, the surge in the number of teams being started and schools seeing the transformative power of this program is incredible by all standards. There were students in all grades: K-3 in Junior FIRST Lego League, Middle Schoolers in FLL, and finally the High School students participating in FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition.

Each of these competitions have their own games and their own unique culture, and being able to be at World Championship and walk through each of them really fills you with awe to see so many students excited to learn and help each other.

FIRST Starts a College Division
For years, students have learned CAD, JAVA programming, machine shop practices, business and marketing skills and then it ended when they graduated high school. Of course some colleges had their own programs but now FIRST can be open to every college student. Not only this, but FIRST is perfect for the culture and spirit of University Sports where the entire school turns out to support their athletes. Now everyone can participate and/or support the learning that is going to change the world.

What is this new college program? It's called CARD or Collegiate Aerial Robotics Demonstration. That's right these robots are flying!

The game is called All Your Base (hooray Geeks!) and is played essentially like a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Students were allowed to choose their microcontroller and most of them picked...Arduino of course! For its cost, relative ease, and large amount of community support, it was perfectly fitting for the FIRST principle of Coopertition and support.

With 352 teams for the FRC program, there is no doubt of how quickly this is catching on around the world. I get skeptical looks when I tell my students and others about how exciting these events can be, but with thousands watching live and online, there is no doubt of the excitement and feasibility of this catching on mainstream.

Friday evening, we were treated to a special performance by Will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas. Will.i.am's appointment as "Director of Creative Innovation" at Intel has allowed him to proclaim a synergy of technology and artists. At this year's FIRST Kickoff he stood there next to Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers to get us pumped up for this season. Friday's performance was recorded to air on August 14th at 7pm on ABC as a showcase of FIRST and the Black Eyed Peas. 

Kamen, shared a conversation between himself and Will.i.am before Kickoff where he asked if he was going to help make FIRST cool. Will.i.am replied, "I can't make it cool, it already is. I want to make it loud!" With releases like The New Cool and ever increasing opportunities for students to participate, the culture is shifting and we will see a shift towards celebrating STEM as we do with music and sports.

A fact shared with us Saturday night, if FIRST grows as much in the second 20 years as it did in the first, we will have over 150,000 teams by 2031. Will you be one of those teams? 

I hope to see you and your team next year at a FIRST or VEX regional. Feel free to leave your World Championship experience in the comments, or describe how robotics has impacted your community/life.

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The New VEX Robotics Game Gateway is Out for 2011-2012

If you are on a VEX robotics team then I am sure you already know about the 2011-2012 new VEX Robotics game, Gateway. This year's game has a few really cool elements that should make the game as fun to watch as it is to play.

• Autonomous, the first 20 seconds of the match where the robot operates without a human driver, is determined not by who scores the most but by who scores first.
• There is one barrel that will double an entire goal's value and another that will negate it. This will make for some very exciting final seconds of play as everything can change in a heartbeat.
• The game takes its name from two gates which divide the field into 3 parts. Teams decide when they wish to raise the gate to open the field.

You can find out the full details by checking out the video below and/or the main site with manuals and descriptions. Oh and by the way, World Championship is in Anaheim, CA this year so we will definitely see you there!

Of course, I don't post this for teams, they already know about this and are hard at work getting their robots ready.

I post this for the vast network of people who can support these students in their quest to learn STEM. It is clear that if we are going to solve the issues our planet and species face, it is going to come from young minds thinking in incredibly creative ways. Robotics is simply the best way to get students interested and learning for the real-world. 

Parents, community members, corporations and businesses, potential mentors, and government leaders, this is your opportunity to step up and support these students and this program. Donate your time, talent, and treasure in whatever way you are able. Don't worry if you do not know much about building a robot, the students have enormous support at their disposal to help them succeed, they just need someone to help them make it a reality and deal with the details and logistics.

If you want to start or support a robotics team and you need help or ideas on how to get started, contact me on Twitter or by email and I promise to help in anyway I can. It is easier than you think. Please consider donating to Chaos Vortex and/or the team in your area. Everything helps and it will make a long reaching impact.

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The New Cool: Follow The Adventure and Excitement!

As we prepare for the FRC World Championship in St. Louis, Missouri; we can't help but reflect about the amazing experience we had at the San Diego Regional. Much of my team had only known about robotics through my experiences with my previous team MorTorq and the excellent PBS documentary Gearing Up. When we went to compete, there was an overwhelming aura of excitement and awe for the students. The teams they had heard and read about were finally here! Dean Kamen's vision that Engineers would be the role models and superstars was coming true for my students.

I have never come across someone who sees a robotics competition and walks away unexcited. When I tell people about my students, their first impression is to jeer at the "nerds" and I smile because they have no idea that the tables have turned. You see, sports and entertainment will always have a place in our society but there is a new source of excitement and inspiration and that is Robotics. Neal Bascomb in his book, The New Cool, gives those who are yet unaware a peek inside this world.

The book revolves around FRC Team 1717 the D'Penguineers. Led by their passionate mentor Amir Abo-Shaeer, the story follows the team through their 6 week build process for the FRC game Lunacy (see the game animation below)

The book gives an uncanny immersion into the world of FRC and allows you to feel every emotion that is experienced by the team. As Amir said at the San Diego regional, this book could have been written about any team because there is this common exhaustion and yet joy that comes from seeing students design, build, program, and compete with a robot from the ground up.

Just as modern marketers were wise to target the baby boomers and their kids with consumer ads, FIRST literally stands For Inspriation and Recognition of Science and Technology and the organization works toward that goal with a passion. This generation is empowered to create as no other generation has ever been with technology and resources being readily available and the results of what they build and learn is the coolest thing ever.

I was forever changed when I started working with Eileen and her amazing team 1515, what is astounding is that up until last year there were still some who did not know that the school had a robotics team. If you are a teacher, you have the best job of all as you can start a team where there was not one before. There are competitions of all kinds to fit all situations and if you need help post a comment and we will point you in the right direction.

If you are a student, hurry up and find/start a team. My team was founded by students and you might be the one that has the vision to get one going at your school. I promise you there are other students just like you who would love to be a part of this and you will learn, do, and connect in a way you never thought possible.

Adults who are outside of education, lend your talents and gifts to this generation. They need it now more than ever before. Whatever you are knowledgeable or passionate about, a robotics team can use you. Marketing, engineering, programming, team support, there is no one who is unable to help a team get started and flourish. If you have the means to financially support a team please find your local mentor and do so (and if you are in the Southern California area check out Chaos Vortex)!

As team 1717's mentor Amir has said, "this is what education should be," and he is absolutely right. Check out The New Cool because this is what everyone is talking about.

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Chaos Vortex Experience at the FRC San Diego Regional Part 2

Wow, is all I can say, and I am not referring to the exhaustion or excitement of FRC. I am referring to the amazing things that my robotics students, Chaos Vortex/Team 3477 achieved this weekend. After a very long inspection process, my students did not get the driver practice they were hoping for. However, it was excellent for them to see how important attention to detail really is.

The following day (Friday) had one surprise after another. With its mechanism not fully functional and untested, the drive team decided to focus on blocking. This was a strategy that worked really well for us as a VEX team last year and many teams fail to see the importance of this. FRC has three teams on each alliance and if you can get one robot to score well for your side while one or two of the other robots block and prevent scoring for the other side, you can really control the game.

This was proven by the fact that our team was ranked in the top 10 for the entire competition out of 60. Our rookie team was blown away to find out that they were even in 1st place for an hour or so.

San Diego Regional is a high visibility event bringing incredible veteran teams like Spyder, Cheesy Poofs, and even our sister school's team the Holy Cows. We had a great time learning and seeing what other teams were doing both with their robots but also to spread the message of FIRST and STEM.

Friday afternoon, Jim Beck the Western Regional Coordinator for FIRST came to our booth. He said, "I keep hearing from the judges and the other teams about this rookie team Chaos Vortex, so I came to see it for myself." Our robotics President and our head of Finance spoke to him for a good amount of time. Soon after he came back with a camera crew from Time Warner Cable/Connect a Million Minds and said that the team was going to be recorded for a piece about FIRST Robotics!

Now everyone on our team was smiling ear to ear, and whats more we got our mechanism working so we were capable of scoring points. Other teams were coming to our booth asking to be on our alliance which was a new experience for us as we are not used to being asked, we are usually doing the asking. We were able to secure Team 1717 Dos Pueblos Engineering and Team 2102 Paradox onto our alliance making us a very formidable opponent. We made it all the way to the Semi-Finals which was exciting and I loved seeing our team go head to head with Team 254 Cheesy Poofs, a team that we respect greatly.

As the awards were being handed out, our small 15 person FRC team was proud of all they accomplished, but just when we thought that our day was done, we received the Rookie All Star award and the Highest Seed Rookie Award. We heard the stadium erupt with applause and recognition because each team had seen and commented on the gracious professionalism and coopertition that Chaos Vortex had at the competition. So now we are preparing for World Championship in St Louis in a little more than a month. There is so much to do but we are so grateful to be honored for the hard work put in this year.

Thank you to the teams, judges, and admin who made this regional one to always remember. My students have been transformed and are so passionate/motivated about STEM and their futures as only FIRST and robotics can. If you have any questions about starting an FIRST or VEX team please let me know.

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FRC San Diego Regional Rookie Team Experience Part 1

To quote my sophomore programmer, "Today was an educational experience." I couldn't have put it better myself.

The excitement grew as all of the teams entered the Valley View Casino Arena (formerly the San Diego Sports Arena) and as we opened our robot crate, it was like seeing an old friend. Having spent over 100 hours working on it, it was so wonderful to find out that our robot had safely made it. Other teams weren't as lucky.

We tightened up all of the screws and added the winch that we had designed to compensate for the extra torque when the robot is coming back up. It worked beautifully! Now all that was needed was to pass inspection, we would be driving in an hour or so, or so we thought.

We go up to the inspection booth only to find out that our weight was 4 pounds over. Now for one who is not familiar with FRC, 4 pounds may not sound like much but when everything you put on the robot was essential at one time, making the decision what to drill holes in or take off is aggravating. We had already decided to not deploy the minibot simply because we felt it was more important to replace it with the winch. While this may not have been the best game playing strategy, I made that call because it was more important to me that this team had a working big robot.

In the mean time, our team received safety pins, which are the judges way of saying good job. We found some of our old friends like team Spyder, the Holy Cows, and Hilltop's EPIC. They helped us out tremendously, and in turn we were able to help out other teams by lending tools, parts, and knowledge. That is what Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers refer to when they speak of Coopertition and Gracious Professionalism and some of my students for which this was their first robotics event kept commenting on how nice and awesome everyone was.

The team became a little stressed as the hours ticked by and they had an issue with their cRio's (robot brain) firmware, and bumpers but they kept each other calm and ended up passing every part of inspection with the exception of the bumpers (which were fixed by a student after another long night of working last night). The team kept getting complements on their marketing materials, people were excited to come take pictures of our robot and see it shoot out tubes, but we ran out of buttons way too fast and so we will be making them throughout the day.

Even though the official build season was over, our team learned a lot. Our programmer learned how to download the code much faster, saving us hours of time collectively, our team became experts in drilling holes, and while it sounds cliche the team became even closer than they already were. They keep talking about how they are always going to keep in touch and having fun. Keep in mind these are students from all grade levels and different social circles. That is one of my favorite things about robotics is how it brings people together to have fun and make something awesome!

I will post updates about the team during the Week in Review and you can follow us on @ChaosVortex. Onto day 2 of 3! I hope the team as an equally awesome day (perhaps a little less stressful)!

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FRC Ship Day! San Diego Regional Here We Come

Well it was a long weekend for everyone but we are finished and I am happy to present to you Team 3477 Chaos Vortex's Rookie Robot General Disarray!

The name of the robot has a dual meaning. First with the name Chaos Vortex we have decided to make our mascot Professor Chaos from South Park and his sidekick is named General Disarray. The second reason is to honor the man who made our robotics team possible, Ray Trinidad. He is our school's dean of students and found the funding for it to start. He is also a huge perpetrator of puns and so we thought that the play on words would further honor him.

Unlike many other robots we have seen, we decided to go with a robot that picked up the tubes from the inside as opposed to a claw from the outside. We also have a camera that provides a first person view of the field. We hope this will provide a better view of the field since the tubes will obscure the driver's vision.

It being our rookie year we decided to go for the low goals but the medium goals are a possibility. We are going to work on the height and tension of the bands when we actually get onto a field on March 10th.

We wanted to make sure that we built a great robot but however it does at competition, the students learned so much. They can honestly say that they have built a robot from scratch. One of my sophomores learned LabView programming which will benefit him next year but also with potential future employers who use it (e.g. Disney, LAPD Bomb Squad, Qualcomm, and many other prominent engineering firms). Others are learning Autodesk CAD, welding, soldering, and various power tools. I wouldn't trade that for any award in the world.

In other exciting robot news, we learned that our team is now sponsored by General Dynamics! I could not be more grateful to one of our mentors Nate, for helping us secure this support as well as being here throughout the season. We could not have done this without him. The support from our other mentor Mike was also much appreciated for his machine shop and expertise.

If you are in the South County in San Diego you might have caught that our team was featured on the front page of the Union Tribune (another picture). Such a wonderful memento for my students to honor their hard work. Our team is working very hard to make sure that robotics becomes equally popular to sports and it was nice to have that recognized.

While the late nights have stopped, the work continues with preparing the marketing materials, programming, working on the minibot and the other 30lbs of parts we were allowed to withhold. Just a couple of quick weeks until the competition and we can see how General Disarray and Chaos Vortex does!

If you would like to follow our robotics team check out the Chaos Vortex Facebook page and @ChaosVortex on Twitter.

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FRC Team Chaos Vortex Week 6 Update

This is it! Zero week is here. The designs are set, the robots are driving, hopes are high, and sleep is low. In this final week the FRC gremlins come out and things start going wrong. We had planned to be finished a week and a half ago but parts and designs don't always turn out like you want them to.

Next year we will use Autodesk CAD to make a more detailed drawing. However, with such a new team and no engineering class previously, the learning curve for the students was too steep. I love refinement and the fact that we have an entire year to get better just makes me smile from ear to ear.

We, like all of the other teams are going to work through the weekend. It will be a lot of work but this season has brought these students closer together than ever. Long days are no fun in the moment but make great memories and FRC tends to make lifelong friendships out of teammates.

Our team received a mysterious donation from Otay Land, we did not ask them directly but we are grateful that they have made a commitment to supporting these students.

I feel like I am rambling so I'll stop, and while there is a lot to say and be proud of (working mechanism, minibot, and drivetrain) there is still much to do.

The robot ships on Monday! I look forward to showing you what we can do.

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FRC Team Chaos Vortex Week 5 Update

Yikes, time flies during FRC. It seems like Kickoff was just yesterday but then again with the long hours it seems like it has been forever. In reference to last week's FRC update, I said I would hopefully have a big proud grin on my face, well consider the below video my proud grin.

Yes it is official, Chaos Vortex's robot is able to move (and really quickly too). It is a bit scary to see something this heavy with the potential to move really fast. Our mechanism works exactly as designed but you will have to come to our regional on March 10-12 at the San Diego Sports Arena to see it in action.

The final week begins and with it comes the building of the giant crate to ship it as well as some long days but our small rookie team is amazing and will rise to the challenge. I am extremely grateful that FRC has the foresight to make ship date after the long President's Day weekend. We will be enjoying that time to get everything all polished up so we can be ready to ship.

To see the robot moving across the floor brings huge smiles to the team and gives them their second wind. Unfortunately it also reveals some of the things that need adjustment but we should be on track. My heart goes out to all of the teams that have asked for an extension to the FRC season because of the weather. WE have had some packages from AndyMark delayed because of it and I can't imagine the difficulty of trying to build. I wish all of the teams luck and energy for the last haul. You are doing amazing, keep it up!

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FRC Team Chaos Vortex Week 4 Update

Great week! It is great to be an FRC team mentor when you see satisfaction and productivity abounding.

The STEM Alliance which is currently a group of South Bay FRC/VEX/FLL teams who are committed to spreading robotics to areas in need and supporting each other with our combined resources. We meet each week to share ideas and help one another out. This week at Hilltop High School we were so grateful that they were able to help our programmer out. Our guy has done amazing so far on his own but with their help he was really able to take off and now our compressor is working!

Derrick is the mentor for the Hilltop Team, 2193, and I have to give a huge shout out to him because since the beginning of our team three years ago he has been so supportive and always willing to share time and resources to help out. We would not be the team we are without him and his team and I am extremely grateful. Speaking of mentors, I am equally grateful for the help and extra pair of eyes that our two mechanically inclined mentor have brought. I know what I know but the wisdom and know-how that they have been able to impart to the students has been so wonderful to watch.

We picked up another 2 sponsors this week, Southwestern Community College and Qualcolmm. The amount of resources and support that supports our team is beyond words and we are so grateful. I have a few students who do incredible work with the business and finance but with our team size, I am spending most of the build season making phone calls with suppliers and getting orders straightened out. My hats off to Eileen and all other mentors who have been doing this for a while because it is exhausting to do the behind the scenes just to ensure that the students have what they need.

This week is our "crunch week" we WILL finish our robot so we can have at least a couple of weeks of practice and refinement because I would rather have a fully functional, beautiful robot than an untested one. I had some time to start speaking with our president about what she wanted to do for our booth and WOW it is going to be amazing. I cannot wait to see what everyone else has come up with this season and I am excited to see the robot come together and finish the final assembly. My hope is that by the next update I will have a big proud grin (either that or I might be too tired to post).

The rush towards ship date looms ahead. Good luck everyone!

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FRC Team Chaos Vortex Week 3 Update

I breathed a huge sigh of relief on Tuesday when our programmer got the wheels to turn via the joystick. Pretty pleased with him considering it is our rookie year and he is only a Sophomore. He is working with Labview and seems to be picking it up quickly. There is also some headway with the image processing and getting the Camera to be able to understand and track what it sees. I am crossing my fingers on that one but would be elated to see him figure it out.

Another sigh of relief came when McMaster Carr delivered our back-ordered part on Thursday. We had been waiting for a week only to find out that the part was much heavier than we expected (there was no mention of weight nor density on the site) so we are on to Plan B which involves only some minor adjustments. Ah the fun of FRC.

The students were treated to a tour of SPAWAR on Tuesday and were amazed at all of the things they were doing with robots. They also remarked how much they recognized from working with FRC! Thanks Dean Kamen for providing these students with an amazing real world opportunity. One of my students says she is reconsidering where she goes to college simply so she can apply for an internship at SPAWAR.

Southwestern College is lending their support to our team and we are grateful to them, a couple of more companies said they would get back to us soon and then we can make our t-shirt and banner. We gained a couple more students from opposite ends of the spectrum: A senior who just this semester realized how much he likes programming (thanks for inspiring him Allison of Infinigons), and a young student who participated in our summer academy for incoming high schoolers are taking over the MiniBot design and it looks pretty exciting.

This is definitely the middle of the build season as things are moving along and the ship date is approaching fast. I have imposed a deadline on them of February 7th (when it actually ships on the 22nd) so we have time to work out the kinks and practice. I made sure this happens by planning two exhibitions, one for an elementary school and the other for our own Parent Association. I would rather have an amazing driver and a well tested (but perhaps simpler) robot than a unpracticed driver on a robot with everything untested.

FRC is definitely turning out to be as exciting and fulfilling as I remembered it to be. I look forward to seeing the students wrap everything together and being able to call this thing a robot!

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FRC Team Chaos Vortex Week 2 Update

We are near the end of the second week of FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) and already we are feeling every emotion possible. Yet overall there is a ton of energy and excitement in the class. I am really proud of my Rookie Team - 3477 Chaos Vortex as they have worked together and earlier this week finished refining their design.

I am sure they wanted to start building right away, but the more time you take to plan, the less time you spend fixing it to make it work. So I really got on them about how parts would fit together and detailed measurements. The parts list grew more and more and as I placed our first order of $2000 I felt confident that they were well on their way to success.

Being a small team, we have most of our team focusing on building, with only two figuring out  the programing code and electrical components. They have done an incredible job and I am grateful to Allison of Infinigons and her boyfriend for being there to support them. This was Allison's first major encounter with Robotics and her programming background has been solely with software. So when they figured out how to make the motor turn via the Labview Software, her eyes lit of with amazement. I love Robotics because it provides opportunities for students of all ages to experience something wonderful like that.

Later this week we had Richard from the National City Plaza Bonita JC Penny come to bring pizza and meet the team. In addition to receiving the NASA Grant, they are our primary sponsors. We are so grateful to them, without their support we would not have a team this year. Richard is really interested in our team and school and has a strong passion for community service which he strives to instill in his store employees. He asked a lot of great questions and was amazed at how the students work together. He was most impressed with how he and I could talk for two hours, and yet the team did not need me to know what to do.

This doesn't mean that I am unnecessary to the team, I give feedback and guidance where I can but I do not design or build the robot. Robotics allows students to see the power and potential of what they are capable of and the less I do, the better. They do a marvelous job of managing themselves. Case in point, we had moved forward with a C-Shaped drivetrain because we felt it would be the easiest way to pick up the tubes (watch the game animation) but later that night, the students discovered that this was not allowed by the rules. Rather than freaking out and getting angry or giving up, they talked it out and within 10 minutes or so, were ready to proceed full steam ahead. 

I would encourage all teams to take a second look at the Robot section of the rule book because there are a lot of things that have changed over the last couple of years. We read the manual very diligently and still managed to miss it. Thank goodness for the Chief Delphi Support Forum!

There was Richard, myself and a team mentor in the room when this incident happened and we were all so impressed and proud of the team and how they listened to each other and worked it out with Gracious Professionalism. I am sure it had helped that this team has spent 3 years as a VEX robotics team developing strong bonds and respect for each other.

I cannot wait to see what is in store this week. The robot is starting to come together along with the code and mechanisms. Our FTC Minibot kit came yesterday (thanks to FIRST Choice for providing that to us) and while I am still tired, I am loving every single minute.

How is your team doing? Are you following this blog and wondering how to start your own robotics team? Let us know what we can do to help.

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Impact a Student's Life by Starting a Robotics Team

I have spoke in the past about the importance of After School Programs. My after school program is a robotics and engineering program. I love robotics because it teaches all of the major aspects of engineering (mechanical, electrical, programming, pneumatics, etc). It is wonderful to see something that you built come to life (very Dr. Frankenstein).

The students love it for this reason, and that every year the organizations frame the challenge in the form of a competitive game. Through teamwork, and ingenuity, students learn engineering and life skills.

At every competition I see educators in the audience get hooked by the excitement and motivation of the students. They want that for their students and the question is, "Which robotics competition is right for me and how do I get started?" Here is an overview of each of the main organizations and some tips on how to get started:

FIRST - FIRST is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. It was started by Dean Kamen who invented the Segway but also the Insulin Pump, and a Water Purification machine. His philosophy is summed up in the following quote, "In a free culture, we get what we celebrate." Seeing sports and celebrities being idolized by students but not engineers and scientists motivated him to start FIRST.

FIRST has been around for over 25 years and is a huge and diverse organization. The original competition FRC (First Robotics Competition) involves students building a large 120lb robot from scratch. Students have 6 weeks from the Kickoff event in early January to design, build, refine,  and test a robot. The students compete in regional competitions and the winners move onto the World Championship. The events are truly exciting and newcomers will be hooked immediately as they are just as exciting, if not more, than any sporting event.

Tips for FIRST:

• FRC has a significant cost, teams spend $6500 to register and pay for their first regional, and up to $3500 for the actual building of their Robot. However, there are many companies willing to help out. FIRST has been around long enough that companies and colleges are well aware of it.
• Creating a robot from scratch can be a daunting task, but while this is a competition, FIRST seeks to usher in a world of Gracious Professionalism. This means that teams are willing to share and help out one another for the true goal of learning and enjoying STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). If you are interested in starting a team, the FIRST robotics website will help you find workshops and other teams in your area who will gladly help out.
• Do not be discouraged if you are not yourself an engineer. Companies will gladly donate mentors to your team to help you out in all aspects of the program. This is another component of FIRST, getting students integrated into the community of professionals. Additionally, my previous Robotics Team MorTorq won the 2010 Chairman's award, the highest award one can receive in FIRST. This was done through the incredible leadership of Eileen Kahn who herself is a businesswoman. Through their partnerships though, the students were never at a loss for expertise. 

VEX Robotics: VEX was originally a part of FIRST but became so popular that it became its own organization and competition. These robots are much smaller (18"x18"x18") but the excitement and learning is as significant as with FRC. 

• The cost is far lower than with FRC. Teams can build a great competition robot for well under $500. Many teams will use VEX to start their robotics team and then a couple of years later add on FRC.
• VEX is great for prototyping, or testing ideas and designs. It takes less than a week to build a VEX robot and the parts are analogous to larger parts (e.g. gear ratios, torque).
• These robots can be built by elementary/middle schoolers with support and the programming software Easy C teaches programming concepts while keeping the difficulty to a minimum.

Botball - Similar in size and cost to VEX, Botball has a much more significant reliance on programming and sensors as their robots are completely autonomous. This means that there is no human controlling the robot duing the competiton. Additionally, the parts are Lego Technic pieces. So while they might not be as robust, the time to build a robot is much faster. This makes it very useful in a classroom for exploring programming and robotics.

BEST - The BEST robotics program was inspired by Woodie Flowers of MIT (and later FIRST) with the hopes of bringing engineering and robotics to High Schoolers. The robots are larger than VEX or Botball but tend to be smaller than FRC robots. The parts are hardware like PVC and Wood, in addition to standard motors and electrical components. BEST is significantly different from other competitions in how heavily they rely upon other aspects of a team besides the robot. To go see a competition you will see beautiful and elaborate booths filled with detailed engineering notebooks, research, and financial documentation.

If you wish to sign up for any of the above Robotics teams, there is still plenty of time. Go to Robotevents.com and sign up your team and register for competitions. Opportunities for funding can come from the numerous grants available for STEM, private corporations, community businesses, organizations, fundraising, and many more. People are going to come out of the woodwork to donate to your noble cause if you keep your ears open and mention it to everyone you meet.

Let me know if you have any questions about starting, funding, maintaining a robotics team. Trust me, once you start, you and your students will work hard but love every minute of it.

SOS - Save Our Schools With After School Programs Part 3

Let me ask you to put aside any of your concerns with starting a program for a minute and ask you a couple of questions.

1) Are you really passionate about something like art, engineering, theatre, math, a foreign language, programming, etc?

2) Can you devote a couple of hours a week after school?

3) Do you believe that every student has potential to do great things?

If you answered yes to all of these, then I would encourage you to start an after school program! Your kids need you!

You might have doubts (I know I did):

• I am not good enough to run a _______ team or group: 
• You will never be able to keep up with your students desire to learn, all you can do is keep the energy high and support them. I had found this to be true no matter how learned you are, students just have too much imagination and energy.
• The MorTorq robotics team was started by a woman who had no engineering skills but was excited and passionate about working with students.
• This is how the Virtual World emerged in my robotics team. I found this software called Blender that while I knew nothing about, I gave it it to a couple of students who I thought might be interested. A couple of weeks later they had created a video game that the whole school wanted to play. There skills continued to grow until they were making huge virtual worlds and that is how the science festival came about.

• There isn't enough money:
• There are so many organizations and companies who want to give money to innovative and effective programs like yours. Do a Google search on "education grants" or grants for ______ and you will see that the list is huge. Additionally your community will love to support you whether it be a company seeking to create future employees or the pizza place down the street that will let you do a fundraiser, the money is there.
• If you are lucky, you might have someone in your district who rights grants as part of their duties. Were it not for our own Lisa Davis helping us raise funds and support us, it would be impossible to do all that our team does.

So hopefully, you have the courage to start a team, so what do you need to do?

1) Find initial funding: If you are creating a robotics team you are looking at a few hundred dollars, if it is a painting club then it might be significantly less. I would check with your school, district, parents, and community. You never know who you will find that would be willing to help so be sure to ask anyone you can.

• A note: many after school programs have disappeared because they relied to heavily on one source of funding. You should always seek to be self sufficient through donations and saving. This ensures that your program will always be around and not dependent upon other people's decisions.

2) Find support: After school programs can take a toll on your time. No matter how committed you are, it is important that you continue to be able to spend time with family, friends, and your primary teaching duties. While you might think that your program will only take a little time, ask any robotics teacher or Patrick Yurick of the Graphic Novel Project and they will tell you that once your program takes off it can take up as little or as much of your time as you will let it.

• Ask fellow teachers or parents, you will be surprised at how many community members would love to help out. I have seen artists, engineers, college students, politicians, writers, even a Disney Imagineer and LAPD Bomb Squad member come to our rescue. Plus the students love to see outside people with real world expertise come and advise them.

3) Find a project: You may think that passion is enough to fuel a group of students but I can tell you it is otherwise. In my opinion, the sole determinant of the success of an after school program is having something to work toward.

• For my robotics team it is the competitions, for the Graphic Novel Project it is publishing two Graphic Novels a year, for a theatre program it is the productions, for a Japanese club it might be a field trip downtown to order lunch or to the cultural center. Whatever it is, I would encourage you to find something and have it ready to announce to the students on the first day as this will help fuel the program.

4) Let the students be the fuel for the fire: If your goal is to get students excited about a field, discipline, idea then once you have given them the tools let them run with it. They will come in with new ways of doing things and innovate right before your eyes. 

• When a few of my students 2 years ago made a video game in Blender, it took them 6 months. They then showed a couple of my Freshmen how to do it, and one of them ended up recreating the game in a couple of hours. Now the bar was raised and there was a huge new influx of energy into learning and creating.
• However, I do caution you against letting them have complete control over the class. I have seen this happen and it either devolved into just hanging out or the project dragged on (deadlines, deadlines, deadlines). 
• Have fun but keep it professional otherwise people might bring in their friends that just want to hang out as opposed to wanting to help the project. I have been firm about asking people to leave the program in order to protect it from those who just want a place to mess around.

5) Market yourself: Neglect this point at your own peril. I am grateful once again for Eileen Kahn teaching me the importance of marketing. This is not just for fundraising, you may be in a situation where your program is taking up resources (students, room space, materials, funding, etc) from others and if you do not constantly extol the importance of your program then people will not know that it is necessary to keep around.

• Some ways of easily marketing yourself are youtube videos, a website, yearbook photos, Facebook/Myspace, appearances before the city council/school board, appearances at school events, newspaper blurbs, referring to it in your classroom, posters, etc.
• I cannot stress enough the importance of doing this. You may never know when it will be important to have the community on your side.

Finally, a message to the community:

Please, please, please seek out a way you can help out in your schools. Whether an after school program or otherwise you will make an impact that will extend beyond what you can imagine. If you are able to donate money, or have an expert in a certain field, can provide space, or materials, you will make a powerful change in student's lives. 

After school is the most powerful use of your resources. With little or no overhead, your donation goes directly toward the passion of a student that they may not even know they had. The ripple effect into the community will be incredible and I thank you for your time and involvement in one of the most important things you can do.

SOS - Save Our Schools With After School Programs Part 2

So after being a casualty of the California budget crisis I found myself at a new school. I knew that I had to start a Robotics team, but I was a bit concerned whether or not I had the time, the abilities to manage a team, or if there would be enough student interest.

As if a sign from the gods that this endeavor was blessed, I was approached by Ray Trinidad (more on this remarkable man in a bit) who had heard of my interest in starting a team. He said that the students had created a petition to start a team from over 20 kids and he wanted to hear more about robotics!

Well, now that the student interest was taken care of, Ray and I spoke for a while about the incredible things I had seen robotics do for students, especially when it seems like the odds are stacked against them. Ray has worked with all types of students for years, so it was an easy sale. Whether working as a leader of schools or partnering with "at-risk" students in Los Angeles Unified School District, Ray has been a champion for after school programs and helping students to find meaningful and safe places to work, play, and be happy.

Yet, it seemed that there might be some bumps in the road. The California budget had still not resolved itself and our district had frozen any new ventures such as this one. So what does Ray do? He whips out his personal credit card and purchases the materials we need! By mid-January of 2009 our team was ready to go. We decided to go with the VEX Robotics platform because of its cost but also because it is extremely preparatory for Engineering careers.

Students poured into this program and began building and learning. As far as my time concerns, after the students learned the basics from me, they went home and learned more and soon only needed me to help them troubleshoot or refine. However, there was another time constraint. Since our team registered so late, there was only one more competition for the year and it was in one month!

I told the students don't worry just do your best. We are rookies and everyone will support us no matter how we do. My team consisted of a lot of students from my class who had been enticed by my numerous geeky references to it. Let me give you a quick rundown of a couple of these students so you can follow their journey. I will only use their initials as to keep their identities private.

V. - A gifted student who was often bored in class because of the lack of anyone's ability to challenge him enough. He became my lead programmer (he became many other things as well).

Am. - Highly motivated and talented student who was unsure of what career she would pursue. Her attention to detail and leadership qualities landed her the Robotics President position.

An. - Very talented artist, while quiet and withdrawn from class. Her desire to "not be beaten by the boys" and video game talents made her an easy choice for the robot driver.

There are plenty more students that I could lavish praises on but I will hold off for time's sake.

Back to March 2009, we went to our first competition, excited and ready to go. From Eileen's MorTorq robotics team, we had learned that marketing yourself as a team is just as important as playing the game. My students had prepared and coached each other to speak to the judges and other teams about their school and their journey.

Meanwhile, the driver of our robot, lived up to her pledge not to be beaten as "The Bear Claw" as it was named quickly climbed up the rankings. Everyone was blown away by the newest team especially the first place team who asked us to be in an alliance with them!

In the end, we received a Judges award for being so eloquent in talking about our team and we won the entire competition! Our minds we reeling as we were now qualified for World Championship.

To summarize our last couple of years, we went to World Championship that year, as well as this year. We were also selected to go the the USA Science and Engineering festival this October for our virtual world. How does a robotics team go on to create a virtual world? You will need to check out the final post in this series to find out how to make after school programs truly effective and life changing.