BETA: TEAM 8397
COMPUTER SCIENCE OUTREACH, 2018-CURRENT
Through our robotics team’s affiliation with 4-H, I (Bradley) have had the opportunity to become a member of a new four-person Computer Science Leadership Team through NY State 4-H. Our goal is to spread computer science and STEM throughout New York State. Because of this opportunity, I have been able to travel to Thanksgiving Point Utah and Washington DC for training and conventions. I have also been able to work closely with Google and their education team. I have even been able to help them design new education programs like CS-first and Google Doodle. This experience has been spectacular. I can’t believe all I have learned and accomplished. So far, I have learned how to write grants, run educational events, and give inspirational presentations. I have also begun to teach a computer science class in my area to a group of seventeen middle school students. I am also planning on running a summer program for middle school students.
Through this program, I and members of my team have run a booth at the New York Fair where over 5,000 people participated in STEM projects like Virtual Reality, Computer Science Workshops, and electronic education activities. These activities were a success, as the community enjoyed them, particularly the Virtual Reality. We used online apps and expeditions to allow the users to travel around the world and back in time to explore famous landmarks and locations. They also liked the computer science workshops. Some of them even got to try out some new educational tools. We are also running classes in serval counties including Orange County and Clinton County. There are over 200 students enrolled in these classes. We plan to expand these computer science classes and other robotics classes in the summer. Using the 1.5-million-dollar grant Google provided NYS 4-H, we have put in motion plans to hold robotics and computer science pathways at serval 4-H camps this summer, including STEM camp and 4-H Career Days held at Cornell. We are also planning on starting more classes and providing materials to educators that want to teach students in their local communities. We hope to spread STEM and robotics to as many students as possible in New York State, especially in our local communities.
SARANAC HIGH SCHOOL OUTREACH, 2018-CURRENT
Two years ago, I (Nick) began my journey with FTC. It has inspired me so much and has shown me how many skills can be learned from these competitions. The opportunity FTC has provided me has changed my life. It built character, work ethic, time management, responsibility, and problem-solving. How robotics changed my life inspired me to spread the wonderful experience. My high school has always lacked the engineering portion of the STEM field, and although the school had just received a grant for science, in order for it to be used for any purpose there had to be a lesson plan, a bill of materials, and a teacher willing to teach the class. I really wanted the school to get a robotics course even if I couldn’t participate. First, I began talking to staff members and students, creating a petition to create the class and finding a teacher who was excited. I drafted a basic overview of a lesson plan and wrote up a bill of materials. Once the administrative staff had determined there was sufficient interest in the petition, I set out to create the bill of materials and outline an entry-level robotics course. In determining the robotics set to purchase for the program, I landed on the Lego Mindstorms Education set because they are familiar and there are lots of expansion sets that are easily accessible. Another benefit to the Mindstorms kits is that they come with a starter curriculum to learn the basics. Then students can be turned loose on more difficult challenges that require them to solve problems and put together the lessons they learned to complete a task. As of fall 2017, the materials were acquired, and the class was filled with students eager to have fun with Legos and learn about engineering and problem-solving. A more advanced course has been planned for the spring semester. I am currently assisting the teaching of the class, working with the teacher to develop new challenges and ways to get students to be creative when solving the problems, they are faced with. When I have spare time, I continue to draft plans for the third tier of robotics classes, which would be along the lines of FTC for students who become increasingly enthralled in robotics and wish to pursue it further in high school. There is even a group of students in the course who are attempting to fundraise to start an FTC team within our own high school who I assist whenever I can.
COMPETITION OUTREACH: December 2 and 3, 2017
The night before our competition we were practicing, and another team came over and was looking at our robot. We decided to invite them to practice with us on the partial field we brought. They said yes, and we worked with them on strategy and practiced serval team matches. We even picked each other in the finals at our competition.
At the competition we had two members of our team help a rookie team with some of their programmings. They were having a problem with their servo that grabbed the glyphs. Without this servo, they would not have been able to complete any of the tasks. We also helped other teams with their sensors and software.
SUNRISE ROTARY
We presented to Sunrise Rotary. We showed them the FIRST FTC video of Relic Recovery. We then showed them our robot and explained to them what our robot can do. We also explained to them our strategy. We then talked to them about how much we value their relationship, as they have been significant contributors to our team over the past four years.
We also built a robot specifically to use for our presentation to them. It was a Happy Dollar robot. A robot that would drive over to a member who was telling a story of something good in their life. They would then drop their dollar bill (the fee Rotary charges to tell a happy story) in the bucket. The robot would then thank them for their donation and would say “Sunrise Rotary is the best”. We enjoy presenting to Sunrise Rotary because they are truly interested and appreciative of what we do. Through this presentation, we were invited to participate in a tour of Mold-Rite Plastics, a local manufacturer of medical grade plastic containers and tops.
MOLD-RITE PLASTICS TOUR
We took a tour of Mold-Rite Plastics in Plattsburgh, NY. We were invited by them to tour their facility after we presented to the Sunrise Rotary Club of Plattsburgh. A Rotary member from Mold-Rite was impressed with what we did and wanted the engineers of Mold-Rite to show us around.
We went for a visit, 15 of us, and had a great time. We put on all sorts of protective gear, so we could go to their facility and watch how they made medical grade plastic containers and tops. They showed us their robotic arms that they use and the software they use to program the arms (LabView). We also met with their design engineers who showed us two new designs that they were getting ready to install on their machines. We spent over an hour and a half talking with their design, programming, and production engineers. We also spent some time with their director of compliance and safety to learn a little more about the business and its supply chain.
At the end of the tour, we received water mugs, golf balls with lip balm and, very much to our surprise, a check from Mold-Rite as a donation to our team.
We discussed the possibility of having some of their engineers mentor our team. We invited their design engineer to visit one of our meetings, so we can show him what we do. We are looking forward to working with these industrial professionals.
4-H DAIRY BAR: July 2017
The team worked two shifts at the 4-H Dairy Bar at the County Fair. The team sold ice cream and drinks to support the 4-H program in Clinton County. By working two shifts, the team allowed the youth in multiple animal programs to not have to work a shift and focus on their animals.
4-H FLL TEAM MENTORS: 2018 Season
Team members mentored the local 4-H FLL Team 2885 in both robot design and programming.
STAFFORD MIDDLE SCHOOL STEM DAY: November 20, 2017
PURPOSE
In 5th grade one of the middle school teachers invited us all to the middle school to participate in STEM activities once a week. When I (Ryan) went to middle school I completely forgot about STEM because they had no STEM programs in the middle school. After going through middle school, I entered high school and was overwhelmed with opportunities. From engineering and computer science courses to FTC robotics there was a lot to keep me busy. I also joined our Science Olympiad team and became a key member of the team. This year I have become the president of Science Olympiad and after losing half our team to college I was worried. It so happened that I was also in National Honor Society and we are required to do a community service project. Another member of the team and myself decided to finally close the gap in the STEM in Plattsburgh. Abiageal and I planned and successfully executed the most successful event the middle school has ever had, STEM Day.
OUR PLAN
After coming up with the idea we had a lot of planning ahead of us. We wanted to host 8 events that would consist of kids taking tests on certain science topics and engineering events where kids would compete with something they built on their own. After meeting with the middle school science department and principal we convinced them to let two high schoolers shut down the school for the day.
GETTING KIDS ENVOLVED
Abiageal and I took an entire day off to talk to the entire school about our plan. We started by giving them descriptions of the events and then talked about how the day will work. We also discussed how STEM has shaped our lives and what STEM programs are offered at the high school. We passed out signup sheets and we expected 40 kids to sign up. The next week I went to the middle school to pick up the signup sheets. There were 149 signup sheets! At that moment we knew we had a lot more work to do and couldn’t let the middle school down.
COMPETITION PLANNING
Now we had to control 149 crazy middle school kids throughout the day. The middle school has a very rigid structure, so we had to have a rigid plan. Every week we would go down to the middle school to meet with the teachers and to help kids with their events during workshops we hosted.
COMPETITION DAY
It was November 20th at 7 in the morning. We had 20 high school kids and half of the high school science department come down to help run the day. It was weird because it wasn’t the teachers telling me what to do. Abiageal and I were the ones in charge. It was up to us to make this day fail or succeed. During the morning we ran 8 events with about 50 kids participating in each event. In 4 hours we graded and determined who would win medals and trophies that we purchased. At the end of the day, Abiageal and I ran an awards ceremony in the auditorium in front of the entire middle school. We wanted this to let everyone know who worked hard to get their medal. Before we gave out medals we had the president of the yearbook and the senior slideshow to make a beautiful slideshow to showcase what happened throughout the day to the kids who decided not the participate. After the slideshow, we handed out 51 medals and 3 trophies!
REACTIONS
After the awards I had several teachers come up to me and compliment me on how well the day went. Even some of the veteran teachers said that they have never seen the kids this excited about something and that STEM day was the most successful event run at the middle school. After all the enthusiasm the high school will be running this event again next year because of its success. After all the kids saw what STEM was I think there will be even more kids participating in the competition next year. Running the competition has truly made an impact at our local middle school and is one of the best moments of my high school career.
TRACTOR SUPPLY FUNDRAISER: OCTOBER, 2017
The team ran a second car wash at Tractor Supply in October and raised $220.00. Besides washing cars, we talked about what FTC is and about our robot and our game plan for the year.
GARAGE SALE: August, 2017
The team also held a garage sale in August during a neighborhood-wide garage sale. The team raised $1,049.54.
COUNTRY DREAMS FARM: August 2017
We ran a booth at Country Dreams Farm for their Farm Days event. We had a robot demo, a place to build and a coding station. We used our competition robot for the demonstration. Many children and adults came to watch us complete tasks from the challenge last year. We discovered having a demo gets people interested and wanting to learn more. Because of this we had members of our team talking to people while they watched and encouraging them to go to the building and coding stations. At these stations we had pre-made activities for the participants to do. One of the most popular was the pit crew. For this activity they had to change the wheels on a robot as fast as possible. In the coding section the participants mostly just looked at what we had done and made programs to run a robot in a straight line. Even though this was simple many people thought it was cool. Over all we had around 35 people participate in the activities and many more just watch the demo.
APPLE ORCHARD: June 2017
Our team went to a local apple orchard where they showed us around. We talked to the owner as he was very interested in automating some of his systems. He showed us some of the equipment they use and the ones that did not work. One of the machines he uses is a tractor that navigates the rows of apple trees. The problem with the tractor is that it works by hitting the trunk of the tree with a stick and finding its distance. This requires the grass being cut frequently. Cutting grass around trees is hard and takes time which is something the orchard does not have. They also showed us around both their new and old fields. The old fields have large trees that have serval hundred apples. The new fields have smaller trees planted closer together which makes it easier to make automated devices for cutting the grass. Our first device is a system to let picking machines follow the rows of trees. Our device is a clip that rides along a wire stapled to polls. The second main goal was to increases the fruit size. They wanted to do this by regulating the amount of water that was given to the trees. Our plan is to set up small weather stations around the fields. There would be four weather stations that can detect the water level in the soil. It will also be able to detect the humidity under the leaves. This allows the person running the orchard to know when he needs to spray the trees for fungus and diseases. They predict that these stations will save them around 100,000 dollars per year. These stations will feed into a main station where more sensors will be held including temperature, air humidity, and rain fall sensors. This station would also have a wireless connection to the orchard’s base of operations, so the user can monitor it always.
MEADOWBROOK: May 20, 2017
On May 20th, we were invited to Meadowbrook, a nursing home for elderly people, to demonstrate our robot. We talked about robotics and FTC. After speaking, we gave them the chance to ask questions and play with the robot themselves. It was a good event where we were able to engage people and l them learn about FTC.
SETON DEMONSTRATION: May, 2017
The team members gave a presentation to the students of Seton Catholic School about FTC. They talked about the robot and about the game while demonstrating how the robot worked. After, students were given the chance to drive the robot themselves. The team answered questions about robotics and the FTC program. At the end of the presentation, several students expressed interest in being part of FTC.
TRACTOR SUPPLY FUNDRAISER: MAY, 2017
Our initial fund-raising effort came through a car wash held at Tractor Supply in May, raising $661.47.
CCC LEARN 2 EARN EVENT: April 29 & 30, 2017
Several members of Team Beta operated a table at CCC’s (Clinton Community College) Earn More event. While there, some of the team members drove our competition robot around the event, answering questions while the rest of the team manned the table. Our team was chosen by two different news channels to be interviewed. The Valley CW took a video of us driving our robot. After that, News Channel 5 chose us as their primary story for their live segment on the event. They interviewed us twice, once for our story and second to end the show. The Valley CW later came back and asked to do an official interview. It was cool to have people come up to us the next morning and tell us they came because they watched us on TV and just had to see our robot for themselves.
