[Robotgroup] Local kids and robots

Wed Jan 17 14:59:37 PST 2007

Hi,

This is Betty Dingus. I've attended two meetings now, plus a Dorkbot. I
uploaded an article about the One Laptop Per Child program a few weeks ago.
I homeschool my eleven-year-old son, Eric, and we both joined the Robot
Group last week (although Eric wasn't physically there). We'd heard of the
group years ago from Bob Comer, our neighbor. I signed up for the Meetup
group, also.

I'm interested in robotics and teaching it to kids, although I'm neither
technical nor an artist (my degree being in Anthropology). Locally, there
are summer camps (such as the pricey IDtech , as recently discussed) and a
tiny program at the Children's Museum. Most of the ongoing action is in
contest teams, though. So here's the scoop about what Austin kids are
involved in (at least, that I know about):

FLL

I coached Eric's FIRST LEGO League team since last September. The annual
contest was held at UT recently.

"FLL is a result of an exciting alliance between
<http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=9390> FIRST (For
Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and the
<http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=9400> LEGO Company. Guided
by adult mentors and their own imaginations, FLL students solve real-world
engineering challenges, develop important life skills, and learn to make
positive contributions to society."

FIRST is Dean Kamen's attempt to make science achievement as popular as
sports achievement. Basically, in the FIRST LEGO League, teams of kids age 9
to 15 have eight weeks to build and program a Mindstorms robot (RCX or now
NXT) that can accomplish a bunch of "missions" on a 4' x 8' board. The
missions are LEGO constructions - the robot must push a lever or deliver a
part or activate some motion. 

Past challenges are detailed here:
<http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=60>
http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=60

Of course, the main focus is to get kids interested in science and to learn
teamwork through group projects.

I had my team program in Robolab, which was the Mindstorms in the Schools
language before NXT. There are tons of resources for teaching it, online and
in several books. All the robot languages for kids are graphical. We didn't
get very far in programming. We did learn about gears and sensors, and
managed a primitive sumobot and line follower. 

ROBOFEST

Now there is another robot contest coming to Austin. As I mentioned at a
meeting it is called Robofest. (Name stealers!) Robofest, sponsored by
Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, is "an annual autonomous
robotics competition for students in grades 5 - 12 that challenges teams of
students to design, build, and program robots to compete in playful missions
and exhibitions. Students have fun while learning computer programming,
engineering, math, and science." Last year some local kids competed in
Houston but now there will be one here, March 24th at Hill Country Middle
School. Teams need mentors, which is why I'm posting this to the group - if
someone contacts you, you will know what they are talking about. Plus, I
assume there is some curiosity about what the youth are up to with all these
new technologies coming along.

Robofest encourages each team to find technical mentors to teach general
concepts to the teams, and how to adapt/adjust their robots because of
unknown and dynamic components of Robofest. From brainstorming a design, to
building something that works, to programming it, teams need help. In order
to promote and encourage team mentoring, Robofest awards each team mentor a
certificate together with a small gift, if their names were entered in the
web-based Robofest management system online. Anyone interested? There's a
small gift in it for you! Along with the priceless gift of knowing you've
made a positive difference in the life of a child. (Snortle.)

They're also planning this, which sounds intriguing:

"Mentoring Using IM

This is a new program only Robofest might be doing. IM (instant messaging)
is very popular between tech-savvy youngsters. We are going to kick-off a
new technical mentoring using AIM. IM could be a very effective tool
teaching online in synchronous mode. We plan to provide an ID for each
specific subject such as RCX code, RoboLab, NQC, IC, LeJos Java, EasyC, etc.
Lawrence Tech professors, professional alumni, and qualified students will
be the IM mentors."

Also, unlike FLL, Robofest is not limited to LEGO - kids in 5th grade
through 12th can use whatever they want to build their entries (see list
below).

Goals of Robofest

1.	To spark young students' interest in science, engineering and
technology 
2.	To challenge the science and engineering skills of students 
3.	To promote students' creative and innovative thinking 
4.	To recognize students' achievements in science and engineering
through robotics 
5.	To build the work force of the future 
6.	To promote good teamwork and work ethics 

Unique Features of Robofest

*	Robots must be fully autonomous, which means that learning computer
control and sensor technologies is highly emphasized in Robofest. 
*	It is one of the world's first autonomous robot contests for
students in which the dimension of the playing field is unknown. A part of
the competition problem is unknown until competition day. And some
conditions of the playing field (lighting, for example, or location of the
objects to be retrieved) are decided after the competition is started. 
*	Robofest is fair and educational, since no direct adult help is
allowed. The entire robot should be constructed and programmed by students. 
*	Robofest competition games promote cooperation between team members,
because they require distributed solutions using two independent robots
working together. 
*	Students have the freedom of using technologies: they may use any
robot controller (kits) such as Handy Boards, Handy Crickets, Basic Stamps,
Boe-Bots,  <http://www.ridgesoft.com> IntelliBrains, VEX,
<http://www.skyschool.net> I-ROBOs, or  <http://www.legoeducation.com> LegoR
RCX bricks. They may use any actuators and sensors to solve competition
problems. 
*	Students have the freedom of choosing programming languages. Junior
teams may use any icon-based graphical programming languages. Text-based
high level programming languages are allowed for senior teams. 
*	Students may use tapes, glues, bolts and nuts, etc. to construct
robots. 

Vex has its own Robofest Vex Pentathlon competition, or Vex kits can be used
for the regular challenge. 

Instead of the game challenge (this year, the bots go down a ramp and
retrieve foil-wrapped tennis balls - representing a Miner Rescue) teams can
enter the Exhibition (build something neat and give a four minute demo).
"The Exhibition is an opportunity for students to demonstrate any type of
robotics project.  Robots can dance, play the piano, make hamburgers, play
soccer, etc.  We encourage full creativity.")  I have a list of what kids
have come up with, which I'll post if folks are interested.

They also have this new category: 

RoboFashionShow Challenge: A team of robots (two are recommended) will use
the whole track (stage) to show off their costume, walk (driving), and
performing dancing motions to music. This is to rope in the younger kids,
grade 4 and up.

And this one:

Vision Based Robot

"Mini Urban Missions" - Collegiate Challenge is like a mini DARPA, using LTU
Laptop robots, which are "a great educational robotics platform to learn
basic concepts in autonomous robotics, control theories, image processing,
and machine vision, and object oriented programming in Java as a default
software development environment."  

Urban Mission Robot Requirements

. Must be autonomous (no remote control is allowed)

. To be fair, it must use L2Bot plat form (same geared motors, sizes, and
batteries)

. Any laptop (notebook) with Serial Port can be plugged to the L2Bot
platform

. One onboard camera (webcam, camcorder, or other vision system); no other
sensors are allowed.

. L2Bot's length and width will be uniform

. Height: less than 5 feet (You may use your own tripod)

. Voice recognition is strictly restricted

All this and more (video contest of what your team went through!) is
detailed at  <http://www.robofest.net/> www.robofest.net.

There are other robotics competitions in town, 

such as BEST, which is a Dallas-based program for schools only, so I don't
know much about them.  <http://www.bestinc.org/MVC/>
http://www.bestinc.org/MVC/

"The idea for a BEST competition originated in 1993 when two Texas
Instruments (TI) engineers, Ted Mahler and Steve Marum, were serving as
guides for Engineering Day at their company site in Sherman. Together with a
group of high school students, they watched a video of freshmen building a
robot in Woody Flowers' class at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The
high school students were so interested that Ted and Steve said, "Why don't
we do this?" 

With enthusiastic approval from TI management, North Texas BEST (Boosting
Engineering, Science, and Technology) was born. The first competition was
held in 1993 with 14 schools and 221 students. 

After learning that a San Antonio group had formed a similar program, the
two groups - North Texas and San Antonio - decided to meet in 1994 for a
state playoff at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, TX. Thus, San Antonio
BEST, the second BEST competition site (or "hub"), was born." [Note:
Austin's hub, Capitol BEST, didn't join till 2001. They're at
<http://www.capitol-best.org/> www.capitol-best.org.]

BEST, Boosting Engineering Science and Technology, is an annual robotics
competition designed "to inspire students towards further studies in the
fields of science and engineering." Students have six weeks to design,
construct, and test an original robot built to complete specialized tasks
and navigate a course unique to each year. Teams can have local scientists
and engineers as mentors to guide students in the right direction and
reinforce their understanding in the creative design and building process.
Teams comtpete annually in one of twenty regional competitions throughout
Texas and its surrounding states.

FIRST

FLL is the junior version of FIRST. The magnet high school has a team, but
there are no homeschool teams as it costs like $4000 to have a team.
(There's now a FIRST VEX (autonomous and remote controlled challenges that
is much cheaper, and of course, Robofest, which is cheapest of all at $60.)

There are some competitions for younger kids, too:

JFLL <http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=18130>  Junior FLL
program For students 6-9 years old. 

EARLY Robotics <http://www.earlyrobotics.org/>  - Engineering And Robotics
Learned Young Robotics Competition. For elementary youth (ages 7-12) using
SIMPLE MACHINES. 

UT, of course, has their robot dog soccer team and other things going on,
like:

<http://austinrobot.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Item
id=2>
http://austinrobot.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemi
d=2

CLUBS

There is a homeschool robotics group that has occasional Library Demo Days
and classes, and an annual sumobot contest. 

Our Yahoo group is here:  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAH-Robotics/>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAH-Robotics/

(AAH is Austin Area Homeschoolers, a giant listserv of local homeschoolers,
not affiliated with the equally large strictly Christian listserv at
www.cheact.org <http://www.cheact.org/> ). 

Many public and private schools have Mindstorms classes - I know it is a
popular 6th Grade Elective at the Kealing magnet school. The Cedar Park YMCA
offered to host an FLL team but there wasn't enough interest.

Many teams also belong to Susan Frederick's mailing list based in Houston.
http://www.jsoft.com/archive/robotics/index.html 

I notice the Robot Group link at the resources page doesn't seem to be
working: http://www.jsoft.com/archive/robotics/resources.html 

Then there are the grown-ups that are building robotic gadgets and art, but
you know about that, I suppose.

See you tomorrow if weather allows,

Betty

P.S. Funny story: Teams are urged to get press on the contests . one team
was recently contacted by Japanese researchers wanting to know about the
team's Underwater Rescue Robots they had read about (they didn't realize it
was LEGO models).