MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) – Houston High school started the new school year with a brand new Scientific Research & Robotics course that has captured the imagination of students.
The school calls it high tech tinkering, but it looks more like a page out of a sci-fi movie: Tiny robots move around the classroom on their own, reacting to sound and movement.
Student Brian Turner enjoys the class and says, “Robotics is a fun elective class that requires a physics elective or prerequisite.”
Students have to apply all of the basic stages and strategies of scientific research including planning, building and testing various robots.
Student Mitchell Herringshaw details the kinds of robots they’ll build, “A remote controlled robot, to robots that move based on light and sound around them. And eventually we’ll be having a robot that will follow a laser pointer around.”
Course creator and physics instructor Melissa Ducey says lessons in this class focus on circuitry, hydraulics, control systems and other areas of robotic functionality.
They’ll also study the history of robotics and some of the ethical considerations and concerns regarding the modern use of robots. Heady stuff, but fascinating for these future scientists and creators of tomorrow.
It’s Friday night, and the Christian Brothers University campus is dark, save for one room on the second floor of the engineering building. The classroom is completely packed with people sitting at long white tables. A few type on laptops covered in stickers. Others fiddle with circuit boards.
This isn’t some crazy weekend night class – it’s the weekly meeting of the Mid-South Makers. The Makers are a hacker circle, a group of hardcore DIY-ers who meet every week to share ideas, projects and tools. Occasionally, members of the group will teach classes on their craft of choice (some of the upcoming classes are in etching, quilting, and programming).
While the word hacker is usually associated with somewhat nefarious computer geniuses, the Mid-South Makers aren’t those guys. On this particular Friday, members of the group are working on motion-sensitive 3-D software, small candles shaped like skulls, homemade Halloween-themed tote bags and circuit boards.
Eventually, the Makers are hoping to get out of the classroom – they’re working to find a building that they can turn into a full-time hackerspace. The space would function like a gym for the DIY-inclined. For a monthly fee, members would have access to shared workspace, tools and classes.
The Mid-South Makers meet every Friday night at Christian Brothers University’s Nolan Engineering building at 7 p.m. Anyone that’s interested is welcome to join.
It has not been officially announced yet, but I have it on good authority that UT Knoxville will be holding a USFirst Regional this coming year. The first “Smokey Mountain Regional” USFirst competition is tentatively set for March 30-April 2, 2011.
Stay tuned for more info!
The BAYOU REGIONAL is still closer to Memphis, but it is nice to know that USFirst is taking hold in Tennessee.
In other USFirst news, Tennessee now has its own regional director: LaJean Robinson (ljrobinsoniii@aol.com). She was hired over the summer after they split TN out of the region that included Georgia.
In news closer to home: Memphis City Schools hopes to add two more teams (making a total of 6 teams in Memphis)!
If you don’t know, Google has a contest call the Lunar X Prize which “is a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth.” (Google Lunar X Prize Website)
One team competing for the prize is at Carnegie Mellon University. Known for their robotics program and their head roboticist Red Widdiker who has lead team for the Darpa Grand Challenge and designed robots to help clean up nuclear accidents, Red has now set his sights on the moon.
The project, called “The Red Rover” is being built and they hope to have it ready for launch in 2012.
After months of competing, the first MoonBots Challenge has come to a close with Team Landroids, a group from Livingston, New Jersey taking first place. The team is made up for five eighth-grade neighborhood friends named Karlin, Stanley, Brian, Gage and Jeffrey. The Landroids were captained by a dad: John Yeh. The winning team’s members are veterans of FIRST Lego League and are no strangers to science and robotic competitions. You can learn more about the Landroids and the protoypes they worked through by watching their documentary or visiting their Web site.
While the Landroids’ final run for the points makes the competition look easy (watch their video after the jump), it was anything but simple. All of their plans were nearly dashed as problem after problem popped up for the Landroids. But in the end, all was good and the Landroids emerged victoriuous.
Master Lego robot builder and MoonBots judge, Steve Hassenplug, talked about what set Team Landroids apart from the others. “I am very impressed with the results from all the finalists. Clearly all the teams worked hard and had a great deal of fun, but it appeared Landroids approached the competition with a level of professionalism unmatched by any other team, and they truly earned first place. I enjoyed the opportunity to judge the excellent work the teams did. They were all very impressive.”
Also recognized were the Shadowed Craters, who captured second place, and Team Moonwalk, which grabbed third. The Shadowed Craters were profiled here a couple weeks ago and are from the Miramar area of San Diego. Team Moonwalk is another New Jersey team (with part of the team hailing from Connecticut).
Anousheh Ansari, another MoonBots judge, commented on third place winners, Team Moonwalk: “Two things stood out for me in this team. One was because they used their technical knowledge to outline the scientific benefits of space exploration but also looked into the social benefits of space exploration and the opportunity for different nations to collaborate and create a lasting peace. This was one of my personal experiences on my flight to ISS. This collaborative aspect of space is what most people forget about.”
The long road to the finals began with more than 200 applications from around the globe, but mainly located in the United States. These teams were tasked with creating a documentary about their team, creating a prototype using Lego Digital Designer, Google Sketchup or LDraw and create a Web site to share information about their team.
From there, the field was narrowed down to 20 teams for Phase Two. (You can review the documentary entries from the top 20 teams who made it into Phase Two here and here.) These Phase Two teams were given Mindstorms kits and a set of objectives to complete within a three minute time period. Based on the team’s performance and some other criteria, a winner was chosen by a panel. Judges for this final phase included Anousheh Ansari, Steve Hassenplug, Dean Kamen and Jeff Kodosky.
“Congratulations to all of the MoonBots winners and finalists,” said Jeff Kodosky, Cofounder and NI Business and Technology Fellow at National Instruments. “NI is proud to join with all the other MoonBots sponsors and partners in this incredibly innovative challenge that will help advance science, technology, engineering and math education throughout the world.”
Team Landroids will enjoy the grand prize of a trip to Billund, Denmark to visit Lego headquarters, as well as a kit and registration for either FIRST Robotics FRC or FTC. The Shadowed Craters receive a 64GB iPod Touch for each team member and a kit and registration for FIRST competition. Team Moonwalk receives a kit and registration for a FIRST competition too.
Thanks to all teams who entered. Every team did a fantastic job, according to William Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes for the X Prize Foundation. “The work these students did this summer was truly spectacular. The mission very closely paralleled the work our Google Lunar X Prize teams were doing, so we greatly enjoyed watching those technical challenges worked out on a different scale. The new era of lunar exploration is being built on the contribution of people of all ages and nationalities, and it is clear that the MoonBots participants have what it takes to make important contributions.”
Destined to be a classic: 7th Race at Monmouth Park on Sunday, August 22, 2010. It has nothing to do with robotics, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this!
The latest report from the clean room where Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory) is being built. This week, the robotic arm was attached to the rover. Friday, August 20, 2010 2:00 AM
