All robo folks,
This is a long report, but I recommend that everyone read it, there is information about a wide variety of topics. This may be one to print out.
I'd like to thank all of those who made it to the Informal Robotics Gathering. I think it was a success. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and it looked like there was a lot of thought and discussion about future robotics projects. I have some pictures and video that I'll try to post soon. It would be neat if we could do something similar with the South County folks, but I’m not sure if I would be able to orchestrate it. Perhaps some of you may have some ideas?
Here are a few notes and highlights from the day. Feel free to post your own thoughts related to the day. This report includes a few guesses, and is subject to the imperfection of memory. Please feel free to add or correct.
Informal Robotics Gathering 2/8/03
El Camino Jr. High 9am-2pm
The RoboChallenge Informal Robotics Gathering that was held in February, 2003 is a model for the kind of activity that can involve all ages in robotics. 50 people from across the Northern Santa Barbara region attended, most being RoboChallenge k-12 students who brought their own robots to share. Others who attended were teachers, parents, and siblings of RoboChallenge students. A local TV news station attended and interviewed several participants for the evening news. There was music playing and food served, generating a comfortable environment. Attendees were able to walk around to see various Robotics demonstrations, and to try their own robots at stations representing diverse robotics challenges. Students were able to compare their robots with those from other schools, share ideas, and were motivated to improve their robot designs. There were free materials distributed and computer kiosks were available with digital media running. Parents were able to witness their children working with robots, and to communicate with teachers, Teachers were able to freely collaborate, sharing project ideas, strategies, and technical tips to improve their own programs.
There were 42 people on the sign in sheet- though many others were there for part of the day. I would generalize the attendance at about 50 people. We had students, parents and teachers from Santa Maria, Lompoc, and Guadalupe. Nash from UCSB MESA came and was a great help.
Mr. Laurie demoed the following kinds of robots- using his own creations:
Tug O War: Mr. Laurie’s Bowflex usually defeated the competition. The EC Junior High Tug O wars were very competitive
Linefollowing: Mr. Laurie’s robot was quickest to cover the line, but there were some very interesting concepts from Tino’s elementary students-using a single light sensor, and from Lompoc.
Autonomous Sumo: Some Lompoc HS students had the first autonomous sumo I have seen that used the tractor treads with great success. Their robot was a very good match for my “Spider”
Drag Race- Fesler Junior high had a couple of very fast designs, they worked on them throughout the day
Sozbots- these are non-LEGO one pound fighting robots, like Battlebots. All of the sozbots we demonstrated were very cheap versions built from Battlebots toys. We may include something like a Sozbots exhibition event at our final event in May, if anyone is interested (though I think we may need to exclude ‘dangerous’ bots, spinners and saws.
Buckyball- this is an advanced robotics competition. Mr. Laurie built a robot to demonstrate a possible solution. Rules are still be formulated for this event. Basically, you build a robot to gather “Buckyball” models- Carbon 60 molecule models shaped like soccer balls. More will be coming soon on this advanced challenge. This may be something that could challenge college students and teachers.
Teachers present had the opportunity to collaborate and broaden their exposure to the different types of robots. We had some detailed discussion of some programming strategies. Tino Alleman and Jamie leBlanc discussed doing some peer to peer training. Tino volunteered to take a day to work with Jamie on how to bring robotics to the younger students- Jamie also teaches 3rd grade. To facilitate this, we’d like RoboChallenge to cover a sub day for the two of them.
We discussed the effort to procure funding with the Lompoc HS teachers. John Galisky will be sending us more info on their NSF grant so that we may partner and leverage assets.
Materials: we gave out a few of the “Creative Projects with LEGO Mindstorms” books. I still have a couple left. We also still have a couple of Mindstorms kits for Jamie. Nash said he’ll bring them next week.
The following ideas were written on a sheet for ideas for Robot Projects- most of which look like they could be competitive in nature, but some would just be problem solving:
King of the Hill: John Galisky
Roller Derby: John Galisky
Off Road Racing
Robo Racing
High Jump
Lunar terrain navigation: Phil Dinter
Stair Climber: John Galisky
Robo Maze: Brad Figueroa LHS
Robo Launch: Brad Figueroa LHS
Tightrope: Jason Brown LHS
Destruction Derby
--note, some of these projects are already listed on the RoboChallenge idea page.
The Channel 12 News came at the end of the day, and did a little spot for the evening news. It was fun to have them, but their story only scratched the surface of the program. They did use the name of the program “RoboChallenge” and they did show an interview with one of Tino’s students.
Coming Events:
This Saturday 2/15/03 is Science and Technology Day. This will be a great day for all of your aspiring scientists and engineers to come to UCSB. For Robo students, there will not be a competition, but if you have a great robot that you would like to show off, you can bring it to the Robo workshop. The plan is to make the robo workshop kind of an exhibition. Mr. Laurie is planning on bringing his robots to demonstrate some of the things we are doing, and to discuss some of the logic behind programming robots.
April 26th, 2003 as part of the weekend long Space Fair and Strawberry Festival, there will be a LEGO robotics competition using our Autonomous Sumo rules. There will be different age categories and cash prizes. Allan Hancock students will be in charge of this event, but I will keep you posted on this email list.
Our final competition is scheduled for May 10, 2003. Any ideas for this day will be welcome. We’ll be expecting to see all the best of all the schools on that day.
Now our attention is turned to funding this program to continue. Any input you have in this regard is also welcome. We’ll be trying to apply for an ISE grant from NSF. Informal Science Education. To read the Request for Proposals, go here:
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf03511/nsf03511.htm
So long, good luck with all of your projects.
-Luke