Mechanicsville Mechanics Concentrate on the Competition

The Flexicell-sponsored Tobor Fanatics won the Norfolk Regional competition of the FIRST Robotics Lego League, taking the titles of:

• Division 1 Championship
• 1st Place in Robot Design

The regional competition was held Saturday, November 22, 2009 in Norfolk, Virginia.  For the Division 1 Championship, the Tobor Fanatics scored 280 in the practice round, 1,270 in competition Round One, 1,270 in Round Two, and 280 in Round Three out of a possible 400 points per round. The next closest competitor scored their highest round at 165 points.

The team is also an alternate to compete in the Commonwealth of Virginia’s statewide event to be held December 5 and 6, 2009 in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The Tobor Fanatics
The Tobor Fanatics is a team of four fourth-graders from Watkins Elementary School and one third grader from another school who reported he found this experience “extremely worthwhile and rewarding.”  The team met twice a week for the three months leading up to this year’s challenge.

Mechanicsville Mechanics Show Off their Awards

Mechanicsville Mechanics FIRST Robotics Lego League Team Also Advances
The Flexicell-sponsored Mechanicsville Mechanics will also advance to the statewide competition in Harrisonburg, VA. Their regional competition was held Saturday, November 7, 2009 at the Maggie Walker School in Richmond, Virginia. The Mechanics placed among the top five teams and took two awards:

• 2nd Place in Robot Design
• 2nd Place in Robot Performance

Flexicell-Sponsored Teams
In 2009, for the first time, Flexicell sponsored teams in the FIRST Robotics Lego League division, including the Tobor Fanatics and the Mechanicsville Mechanics.  These teams are comprised of elementary and/or middle school students grades four through eight (ages 9-14).  The LEGO League is an introduction contest to the more intricate FIRST Robotics competitions held by high school teams around the globe.   Flexicell has been a long-time sponsor of FIRST Robotics champion teams in the high school level.

Flexicell, Inc.
Flexicell, Inc. is a leading robotic system integrator, providing custom packing, palletizing, and material handling solutions such as case packing, assembly, feeding of product to other machinery, vision inspecting, collating, machine loading and unloading, conveying, palletizing/depalletizing, and automatic guided vehicles (AGVs).  Since its founding in 1992, Flexicell has created automation systems for companies located throughout North America in diverse markets such as food & beverage, pharmaceutical & medical, manufacturing, electronics, automotive, and household.  Flexicell is headquartered in Ashland, Virginia.

Visit us at www.flexicell.com.

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FIRST Lego League

For the first time, Ashland, VA-based robotic system integrator Flexicell will sponsor FIRST Robotics teams at the LEGO level. The LEGO League level is comprised of elementary and/or middle school students grades 4-8 (ages 9-14) as an introduction contest to the more intricate FIRST Robotics competitions held by high school teams around the globe. For 2009, Flexicell will be sponsoring the Mechanicsville Mechanics and the Tobor Fanatics LEGO teams.

Previously, Flexicell had only sponsored local teams at the high school level.

Flexicell’s Involvement

Flexicell became involved in the FIRST Robotic Competition over 7 years ago, and helped establish a robotics team at Deep Run High School when it opened. The company has been a prime Deep Run (regional title winners 2009, 2008) and J.R. Tucker High School (regional title winners 2006, 2005) team sponsor ever since. Other schools Flexicell has sponsored include Mills Godwin (regional title winners 2007) and Goochland High Schools.

Each year, Flexicell, Inc. opens its manufacturing facility at 10463 Wilden Drive in Ashland, VA to provide assembly space, engineering assistance, and mentorship to the robotics teams during the 6-week period allowed in which to build their competitive robots. Teams are provided by FIRST with a common kit of approved parts and the robots have a size and weight limit. They must be designed and built to competition-ready completion with the 6-week period.

Flexicell engineers volunteer their after-hours time to mentor the teams, providing engineering and production resources, the use of the Flexicell facility to build and test their robots, and donations of materials and supplies for the robots. The mentors discuss problems, encourage solutions, and provide guidance and discipline for the complex task. Flexicell’s logo is featured on the robot bodies.

About FIRST LEGO League

FIRST LEGO League (FLL) introduces younger students to real-world engineering challenges by building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface. FLL teams, guided by their imaginations and adult coaches, discover exciting career possibilities and, through the process, learn to make positive contributions to society.

Elementary and middle-school students get to:

• Design, build and program robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technology
• Apply real-world math and science concepts
• Research challenges facing today’s scientists
• Learn critical thinking, team-building and presentation skills
• Participate in tournaments and celebrations
• Earn a place in the World Festival

What FLL teams accomplish is nothing short of amazing. It’s fun. It’s exciting. And the skills they learn will last a lifetime. http://www.usfirst.org/community/fll/

Learn more about Flexicell and its community involvement at www.flexicell.com.

VirginiaFIRST, a nonprofit group organized to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology, received the Greater Richmond Technology Council’s Chairman’s Award. The award goes to an individual or organization that has made a significant impact on the growth of technology in the region. Awards were given out at the May 13, 2009 banquet. Flexicell is a sponsor of VirginiaFIRST, which is part of the FIRST Robotics organization.

FIRST World Championship Finals at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta

Ashland, VA…March 25, 2009…Deep Run High School, Team 1086 known as “Blue Cheese,” beat out all 346 other competing teams at the FIRST Robotics World Championship Finals to win the Chrysler Team Spirit Award.

This award is one of the special recognitions, and celebrates the team that best exemplifies extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit through exceptional partnership and teamwork. It is the first international award won by Deep Run or any Flexicell-sponsored robotics team in the FIRST Robotics challenges. The international competition was held April 16-18, 2009 in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia.

Deep Run High School’s robotics team calls itself “Blue Cheese” and its 2009 robot entry is named “Muenster.” The students, teachers, sponsors and supporters wore bright yellow Cheesehead hats for the competition, along with their blue team shirts and miscellaneous team spirit items.

Flexicell’s Involvement

Flexicell became involved in the FIRST Robotic Competition over 7 years ago, and helped establish a robotics team at Deep Run High School when it opened. The company has been a prime Deep Run (title winners 2009, 2008) and J.R. Tucker High School (title winners 2006, 2005) team sponsor ever since. Other schools Flexicell has sponsored include Mills Godwin (title winners 2007) and Goochland High Schools.

Each year, Flexicell, Inc. opens its manufacturing facility at 10463 Wilden Drive in Ashland, VA to provide assembly space, engineering assistance, and mentorship to the robotics teams during the 6-week period allowed in which to build their competitive robots. Teams are provided by FIRST with a common kit of approved parts and the robots have a size and weight limit. They must be designed and built to competition-ready completion with the 6-week period.

Flexicell engineers volunteer their after-hours time to mentor the teams, providing engineering and production resources, the use of the Flexicell facility to build and test their robots, and donations of materials and supplies for the robots. The mentors discuss problems, encourage solutions, and provide guidance and discipline for the complex task. Flexicell’s logo is featured on the robot bodies.

This year, Flexicell also donated to the FIRST Virginia a $6,000 grant to use for making a DVD of the 2009 championship.

The RoboRaiders from Hillsborough High School in New Jersey show off their robot. The team works with engineers and mentors from Johnson & Johnson to build their creation. (Image courtesy Ben Park)

With our complimentary safety glasses firmly protecting me and my family from flying robot parts, we ventured down to the FIRST FRC qualification rounds at the Georgia Dome on Saturday morning. Downtown Atlanta was an odd mix of robots and their makers, as well as highly caffeinated people competing for the title of the world’s best barista at the adjacent Georgia World Congress Center.

Arriving around 10, we watched a bunch of teams play this year’s game of Lunacy over on the Archimedes stage. Lunacy basically entailed trying to get a bunch of moon rocks into the trailers hitched to robots of the opposing alliance, kind of like robotic basketball, as I explained in previous post. Not too difficult, right? Yeah, except try it with robots.

After watching for a while, we headed over to the busy pits where teams gathered in between their matches to fix their robots, check out the competition (like the FemBots!) and arrive for weigh-in. They were also busy scoping out scholarships, talking to reps from NASA and the Google Lunar X Prize and, of course, playing Guitar Hero.

Unfortunately we couldn’t stay long enough to see which teams rocked the finals, but if someone wants to send the winners, we’re happy to update the post with our congrats.

I’m glad the science team at HowStuffWorks.com made it to the event. Along with all the spiky hair, capes, costumes and unabashed excitment, it was inspiring to see the next generation of engineers and scientists from the U.S. (and the world) enjoying themselves. With kids, mentors and events like these, maybe the U.S. has more than a fighting shot at contributing to tomorrow’s technology and robotics research.

Enough sap. Read more robotics and check out our amateur pics from Saturday below. And if you have’t seen it already, read Robert’s post about FIRST’s robot parade, too.
How FIRST Works
How the Google Lunar X Prize Works
Will robots get married?

Of course, Google wouldn't let this opportunity go by without making an appearance. Members of team 1086 (I'm guessing they're from Wisconsin) look pretty interested. (Photo courtesy Ben Park)

When they weren't busy chatting up Google reps, Guitar Hero kept a bunch of FIRST participants in a trancelike state. (Photo courtesy Ben Park)

Watch out! Robots were on the move in the pits on Saturday. (Photo courtesy Ben Park)

I wasn’t on the math team in high school. My gray matter stalled out after entering the shadowy territory of trig and calculus. I certainly wasn’t a member of the robotics team — largely because we didn’t have one. And let’s be honest, I’m not sure I would have made a valuable addition. But in 2002, the UberBots were born, and according to the team motto, they “eat kryptonite for breakfast!” Even better, the UberBots, along with many other U.S. and international robotics teams are headed to Atlanta to duke it out at the 2009 FIRST Championship. And we’re going to check it out.

Here’s the scoop, according to the FIRST Web site: Eligible teams compete in short games played by remote-controlled robots. A team of 10 to 20 high-school students and a handful of mentors design and build the bots in six weeks out of a set of common parts, with the students guiding the robots on the field. The really good teams wind up in Atlanta battling for the yearly championship. The winner receives the Chairman’s Award. How sweet would that look on your MIT application?

Plus, it looks like a ton of fun. This year’s competition is called Lunacy. It involves building robots that can pick up balls and dump them in the baskets attached to your opponents’ robots. Just think of it as an extension of March Madness, except in April and with robots. If you’re not really getting the idea, here’s a video from a regional 2009 competition:

Anyone else headed down there?

More robotics reading at HowStuffWorks.com:
How FIRST Works
How Robots Work
How Nanorobots Will Work

Hans de Koning, president of Flexicell, Inc., an Ashland, VA-based robotic system integrator, is proud to announce that Flexicell-sponsored local robotics teams­–Deep Run High School and J.R. Tucker High School­–again swept the major awards in the annual FIRST Robotics Competition NASA/VCU Regional Challenge, held March 19-21, 2009 at the Siegel Center on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond, VA. This challenge was one of a series of regional competitions held nationwide that lead up to the final championship. First-place awards taken by Deep Run High School, Team 1086, include the following:

• Winner – FIRST Robotics Competition NASA/VCU Regional Challenge
• Regional Chairman’s Award – honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST.
• Web Site Award – for the first time, Deep Run’s web site won this top honor. www.1086bluecheese.org

J. R. Tucker High School, team 384, won the following:

• Regional Finalist – FIRST Robotics Competition NASA/VCU Regional Challenge, www.sparky384.com

Deep Run’s Second Consecutive Year to Sweep the Top Awards
2009 represents the second consecutive win of BOTH the competition and the Chairman’s Award (the top honor) and the first time a team has taken both awards consecutively.

• Watch videos of the finals:
  • The first match of the championship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_FKV-hpZtU
  • The second and final match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7-eEoPWHlc

Connor Clarke the Winning-est Coach
The two Flexicell-sponsored teams under the coaching of Connor Clarke have won an unprecedented 4 out of the last 5 Regional Championships. He was first with the J.R. Tucker team that won in 2005 and 2006, and then moved to coach the Deep Run team that won in 2008 and 2009.

Flexicell has sponsored 5 out of the last 5 winning teams in Deep Run, J.R. Tucker, and Mills Godwin high schools.

To the World Finals
The Deep Run team now progresses to the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship held April 16-19, 2009 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. Over 325 teams will be represented from over 20 countries around the world, with over 25,000 competitors. Competition is fierce in this “Olympics” of the robotics world.

The Teams
Deep Run’s robotics team calls itself “Blue Cheese” and its robot is named “Muenster.” The students, teachers, sponsors and supporters wore bright yellow Cheesehead hats for the competition, along with their blue team shirts and miscellaneous team spirit items. Team 1086 came into existence for the 2002 school year at the opening of the new school. They began as the “Pirates of the Black Pearl” before switching to Blue Cheese in 2008 to represent the school’s main color. In 2008 they were the Regional Winner, and took the Chairman’s Award and the Xerox Creativity Award.

This year Deep Run made a documentary-short film on their “road to the championship.” It can be seen at the following link: http://flexicell.com/news/flexicell_first-robotics2009.mp4.

J.R. Tucker’s team’s goal is to provide a fun and stimulating problem-solving experience for every team member. They named their robot “Sparky­”Sparky X” to be exact, as it is the 10^th robot. The robot features a tiger paw and lightning bolt as their way of representing the school’s mascot as well as Sparky itself. The tiger brings the colors of the uniforms, robot and other team-related items. By using the school’s mascot and the robot’s name, they unify the school in the process of building and maintaining their FIRST Robotics team.

How did Deep Run Win Again?
“We have a great team and a great robot,” explains Dave Cohen, Electrical Engineer at Flexicell and longtime mentor. “They are exceptional at figuring out how to play these games to maximize the score. We also built an extremely durable robot. These robots get hit by other teams, slammed into the walls, and others try to damage it­there is no penalty for that.”

“Alliances were also good,” Cohen continues. “Team 1086 won along with 2 other teams chosen to form a strong alliance. It didn’t hurt that Deep Run scooped up a “super cell” which is allowed to be played in the last 26 seconds of the game, tossed it for a possible 15-point score. Or that many of the other teams were plagued by penalties. At the end of competition, they team linked together to form a celebratory Conga line around the competition floor.”

The challenges included getting it done in time. Teams often worked long hours, some until 11:30 at night and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. until sometimes 8 p.m. At the last minute this year’s entry was still over the weight limit and had last-minute bugs. They simply ran out of time before the crating deadline and ended up fixing some of the problems on the VCU field just prior to the competition.

Flexicell’s Involvement
Flexicell became involved in the FIRST Robotic Competition over 7 years ago, and helped establish a robotics team at Deep Run High School when it opened. The company has been a prime Deep Run (title winners 2009, 2008) and J.R. Tucker High Schools (title winners 2006, 2005) team sponsor ever since. Other schools Flexicell has sponsored include Mills Godwin (title winners 2007) and Goochland High Schools.

Each year, Flexicell, Inc. opens its manufacturing facility at 10463 Wilden Drive in Ashland, VA to provide assembly space, engineering assistance, and mentorship to the robotics teams during the 6-week period allowed in which to build their competitive robots. Teams are provided by FIRST with a common kit of approved parts and the robots have a size and weight limit. They must be designed and built to competition-ready completion with the 6-week period.

Flexicell engineers volunteer their after-hours time to mentor the teams, providing engineering and production resources, the use of the Flexicell facility to build and test their robots, and donations of materials and supplies for the robots. The mentors discuss problems, encourage solutions, and provide guidance and discipline for the complex task. Flexicell’s logo is featured on the robot bodies.

This year, Flexicell also donated to the FIRST Virginia a $6,000 grant to use for making a DVD of the 2009 championship.

BACKGROUND
Flexicell, Inc.
Flexicell, Inc. is a leading robotic systems integrator, providing custom packing, palletizing, and material handling solutions such as case packing, assembly, feeding of product to other machinery, vision inspecting, collating, machine loading and unloading, conveying, palletizing/depalletizing, and automatic guided vehicles (AGVs).  Since its founding in 1992, Flexicell has created automation systems for companies located throughout North America in
diverse markets such as food & beverage, pharmaceutical & medical, manufacturing, electronics, automotive, and household. Flexicell is headquartered in Ashland, Virginia. www.flexicell.com

The FIRST Robotics Competition General Information
The FIRST Robotics International Competition is a high-school robotics competition where teams build and operate robots in competitive games.

High School students from the United States of America, Brazil, Canada, The Netherlands, Israel, the United Kingdom, Mexico and other countries competed. Their task ­ to design and build weight- and size-limited robots that can complete a game task that is completely new every year. Teams are given a standard set of parts and game details the beginning of January and are given six weeks to construct a competitive robot that can accomplish the game’s tasks. Regional competitions were held throughout March, including one at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, to qualify for the 2009 World Championship held in Atlanta, GA. Previous championships have been held in Houston, TX and EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL.  Information can be found on www.usfirst.org.

Flexicell is a proud sponsor for two teams in the VCU/NASA FIRST Robotics competition held for high school-aged youth across America and around the world. Last year, one of our teams–Deep Run High School–won the regional championship and the Regional Chairman’s Award honoring the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST. This year’s championship will be held March 19-21 at the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center in Richmond, VA.

Check out this documentary-style short film about Deep Run High School’s run for its second championship in 2009.

http://flexicell.com/news/flexicell_first-robotics2009.mp4

Here is a pix of Team 1583’s chassis.  On schedule for the pre-ship scrimmage at the Colorado School of Mines:

Team 1583 - RAMbunctious Roger

 http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74158

**Update**

Anybody familiar with robotics knows the kickoff is the first Saturday in January.  Teams have a total of 6 weeks to design, engineer, build and program the bot for the competition.  Ship day this year is February 17 and the Colorado Regional competition is at Denver University March 26-28.

Team 1583 will use this page to update this year’s build and design.  While most students will not have access to the net, the programmers hope to use this to work with one of the team members who recently exited our program.

Last note for the FIRST community and friends of RVA

Roger Allot was the man who brought FIRST Robotics to RVA in 2004 when he joined our Community Advisory Board.  Throughout the years this man’s enduring efforts to try and sustain our team and our facility is  unparalleled.  Roger passed away on Thursday January 29, 2009 after a year long fight.  He became a dear friend to me beyond Robotics throughout the years.  It is an honor and privilege to have spent time with him and work with him.  I cannot stress enough how much I am going to miss him and how profoundly he influences my life.

L-R: S/A Julius G., Roger Allot, Adam Bryant {programming}, John Fry {RVA principal}, S/A Joseph N., Governor Ritter, Chuck Brant{engineer}, S/A Nick H., Brad Billingsly {RVA CAB}, Jim Gault {Central Region Director, CDHS, DYC}, Russell Burchill {team leader}

robots playing basketball on a field simulating the moon’s gravity? Lunacy!. =D

Here’s a youtube video explaining the game in greater detail.

For those of you about to navigate away, spare me the moment and check out the video. It is this year’s game for FRC. First Robotics Competition.Check out usfirst.org for more information.

As any parent can tell you, today’s kids are scarily adept with computers. Now watch America’s brightest high school science students achieve breakthroughs…set the groundwork for brilliant careers…and make extremely cool robots. They’re part of the FIRST Robotics Competition, in which more than 20,000 high school students from across the country compete to reach new breakthroughs in robotics. The contest gets its name from “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” (FIRST), an organization founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen.

Follow three diverse teams in this Science Channel original special — feel the heat of competition, marvel at the teenagers’ ingenuity, and connect with the emotion of the experience.

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com’s standard return policy will apply.

FIRST Robotics 2004 is available at Amazon for $19.95. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• FIRST Robots: Aim High: Behind the Design
• FIRST Robots: Rack ‘N’ Roll: Behind the Design (FIRST Robots: Behind the Design)
• The Competition: Robotics
• Building Robot Drive Trains (Robot DNA Series)
• FIRST Robotics: Part 1: Pit Crew & Part 2: Competition Day (NTSC DVD Video Duo Pack)

College of Liberal Arts Names Science Center Director Alumnus of Notable Achievement

ST. LOUIS— The University of Minnesota announced Dr. Christine Roman, PhD has been named a 2008 “Alumnus of Notable Achievement” for its College of Liberal Arts (CLA). Roman is a 1975 graduate of the University, and currently is the Associate Director of Emerging Technologies for the Saint Louis Science Center.

CLA Interim Dean James A. Parente and other University officials noted that Roman has distinguished herself as a leader in the community through her role at the Saint Louis Science Center and her tremendous civic engagement, particularly through her years of work with the FIRST Robotics program.

The College of Liberal Arts “Alumnus of Notable Achievement” (ANA) initiative was created in 1994 to honor the significant achievements and contributions of CLA alumni. Of the College of Liberal Arts’ nearly 110,000 graduates, Roman is one of only 1,200 who hold the “Alumnus of Notable Achievement” distinction. All ANA members are nominated by CLA alumni, faculty and staff.

Doug King, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Science Center said, “This is a tremendous honor for Chris, and we are very proud of her many accomplishments.” King added, “We’re fortunate to have such a consummate science professional and educator as a part of the Science Center staff.”

In her role as Associate Director, Emerging Technologies at the Saint Louis Science Center, Roman oversees all exhibits, programs, grants and collaborations related to emerging technologies, including the Cyberville and Infomachines galleries, the community-wide FIRST Robotics programs and several NSF grants. Roman joined the Saint Louis Science Center in 1990 and has directed the development of numerous exhibits and galleries for the institution, including Cyberville’s Nano Center, Saint Louis Science Center:  20th Anniversary, Space and Popular Culture, Mental Health: Your Brain Matters, and others.

###

Trademarks:

Thank you for your interest in covering the Saint Louis Science Center. We ask that you include the full names of our institution: Saint Louis Science Center, OMNIMAXÒ Theater, and James S. McDonnell Planetarium when writing your story. 

Saint Louis Science Center

The Saint Louis Science Center is one of the top five science centers in the United States, serving 1.2 million visitors annually. Recently named one of America’s most visited museums by Forbes Traveler Magazine – the only museum in Missouri to be named to that list – the Saint Louis Science Center complex includes a four-story OMNIMAX Theater, the air-supported EXPLORADOME, the James S. McDonnell Planetarium, and the state-of-the-art Taylor Community Science Resource Center. The goals of the Saint Louis Science Center are to educate, inspire and motivate visitors of all ages and engage the community in public dialogue about science-related issues of the day. For more information about the Saint Louis Science Center and its programs, visit http://slsc.org.

For further information, contact:

Beth Bishop

Saint Louis Science Center

(314) 289-1455 or (314) 267-9916

Mary Hediger

For Saint Louis Science Center

(314) 725-5645 or (314) 910-7895

mary@sequel-llc.com

What is the FIRST Robotics Competition?

According to USFIRST.org “FIRSTRobotics Competition (FRC) is a unique varsity sport of the mind designed to help high-school-aged young people discover how interesting and rewarding the life of engineers and researchers can be. The FIRSTRobotics Competition challenges teams of young people and their mentors to solve a common problem in a six-week timeframe using a standard “kit of parts” and a common set of rules. Teams build robots from the parts and enter them in competitions designed by Dean Kamen, Dr. Woodie Flowers, and a committee of engineers and other professionals. FIRST redefines winning for these students because they are rewarded for excellence in design, demonstrated team spirit, gracious professionalism and maturity, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Scoring the most points is a secondary goal. Winning means building partnerships that last.” 

The following text is a transcription of an audio interview conducted at the Las Vegas Regional FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) on 28 March, 2008.

Team interviewed: The Dukes from Brophy College Preparatory, Phoenix, Ariz.  

Name of robot: Maverick.

Interviewees: President of the club Barrett Ames and club member Ryan Filler. 

“Q: How did you get into engineering and robots?

BA: Started out as LEGO as a little kid. Then I got to high school and saw something like this just driving outside… When you see this big bulky machine in the middle of your school you are like “Wow, what’s that?’ So you go check it out.

Q: How did you come up with the idea about this robot?

RF: We do different things. We brainstorm about how it’s going to drive, then how it’s going to manipulate, the game pieces… We also have meetings where we throw in ideas and decide which ideas are good.

Q: What does this robot do?

BA: It drives around, it has an arm which works as a forklift, there are two forks in the front that will drop down and will scoop up the ball and then the arm will lift up and shoot at the overpass area.

Q: What is the best thing about this competition?

RF: Just seeing all the other robots, getting to show off ours…

BA: I’d stay at the shop from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. and it is nice to just finally see it all in one piece and working.

Q: What are some of the downsides of this competition?

BA: The downside is that I am not at home. I can’t go home and sleep in my bed.

Q: What aspect of this competition do you feel will have the greatest impact on you as far as your future, career goals…? 

BA: We gain a lot of leadership and teamwork skills, which is important in almost any industry we go into and also many kids decide here if they really want to become engineers…

Q: Do you?

BA: Yeah I do.

Q: How about you?

RF: No. I will always love it but it is more like a hobby.

Q: How do you feel about the judging and awards given at the competition? Do you feel it is all a fair game?

RF: I think they try their best, I mean there is nothing done on purpose. They are constantly trying to improve the rules and how they judge. They always tick the teams just a little bit off here as they don’t have the electronic lab counter. There is probably a higher error here than in Phoenix, but…

Q: How did you guys do there?

RF: We did terrible.

Q: Are you hopeful that this competition will have a better outcome?

BA: Oh yeah. We are doing a lot better already. We just didn’t get ourselves out there; people didn’t know we were there so they didn’t pick us. So we are just selling ourselves basically.

RF: Our robot is pretty good it’s just that in Phoenix we had a lot of bad luck.  We constantly paired with not so good teams and so…You really depend a lot on the other robots in the team because even if one is really good, but two are bad, we are still going to lose. We have got to have a good blend of good teams.

Q: So do you guys bring your equipment and start from scratch or most of it is already built before you join the competition? BA: Well 99 percent of it is here. There is a 1 percent of tweaking that we do that gets us from the 30s to the 10s. It’s just a lot of tweaking.

Q: Would you do it again?

BA: I have done it every year, but it’s my last year now. I am a senior.

RF: It’s my second year. I did it as a freshman also.

Q: Barrett, you mentioned you are graduating soon, are you thinking about going to college, applying for an engineering program..?

BA: Yeah, I already have acceptance letters from several universities including Cornell.

Q: What is the biggest obstacle you encounter as a team when you are trying to come up with the most sophisticated prototype?

RF: It’s about choosing the right methods. There is a lot of ways you can come to it and it’s just about perfecting your ideas and making them more efficient so…

BA: It’s really hard to keep it simple as there is so much to do out there. You have this tendency you want to do it all and it’s best if you can keep it as simple as possible. It’s really hard to keep yourself from just expanding…

RF: The biggest obstacle I would say is probably time.

Q: How long did it take you to come up with this one?
FR: The building season for the robots is six weeks so the first week and a half we did brainstorming and designing. Then we started building it.” 

For more information about the Dukes team visit http://faculty.brophyprep.org/robotics/roster.html  

According to USFIRST.org there were 43 teams registered for this year’s regional competition which ran from March 27 to March 29, 2008 at UNLV ’s Thomas & Mack Center. The following teams from Las Vegas, Nev. also took part in the competition: 

 For more information about the FIRST Robotics program, competitions and results visit  http://usfirst.org/  

MALIBU—On November 3^rd, Pepperdine SIFE held four seminars on fundraising and financial planning at a FIRST Robotics event at California State University, Northridge.  This marks SIFE’s third consecutive year helping high school teams involved with FIRST.

FIRST Robotics is an organization aimed at inspiring high school students to become leaders in the science and technology world.  Each year, teams design and build robots during using a common set of parts and with certain tasks in mind. As team budgets rely on fundraising and obtaining sponsorships, Pepperdine SIFE finds this the perfect opportunity to contribute their knowledge regarding financial planning and management.

During SIFE’s hour-long seminars they taught the teams money saving tips, as well as provided them with tools to track their expenses.  SIFE member and Director of Human Resources, Gabriel Johnson notes, “They already do a great job fundraising, but they don’t know how to manage the money that comes in. That’s where SIFE steps in.”  SIFE’s presence at FIRST Robotics events is greatly appreciated as many team advisors make it a priority to attend their seminars.