Students Learning, Competing With Robotics
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
In Ben Barkey's science honors course at Edgewood Middle School, students spend eight weeks on a robotics unit. At Warsaw Community High School, Warsaw Area Career Center teacher Abbi Richcreek advises the newly formed robotics club. Both groups will take their work to competitions, with Richcreek's group competing Saturday.
In an interview Oct. 28, Barkey said this is the first year that all the teams from his class will compete at the Legos® robotics competition. During the past three years, his class would hold its own contest first and then the top two teams would move on to the next round of competition. With the popularity of it and help from Zimmer this year, all eight teams in his class will compete at state.
Every year the Legos® competition has a new theme. The theme this year is bioengineering, which is a nice theme for the Warsaw community, Barkey said. Warsaw is considered the orthopedic capital of the world.
There are two major parts to the competition. Students have to design a robot to complete tasks on a field, which are bioengineer centered this year. The other half is to identify a problem in the bioengineering field and come up with a solution that will be presented to judges.
"It's a unique beast because there's no procedures or guidelines," said Barkey.
He said the students are experiencing a little bit of the real world, and they have the freedom to choose what they want to do. It's a good project for the students, he said. They'll not only be graded on their robotic project but also their teamwork.
For junior high students, Barkey said it can be a little challenging, but they can't just ignore the teamwork aspect of it.
"We treat it like a sport," Barkey said. Students even stay an hour or more after school to work on their robotics. Some even take time during school breaks for it.
"It's stressful. You throw the grade portion on top of that, and these kids are used to getting A's," Barkey said.
On Nov. 20 at Elkhart Memorial, the students will have their first competition. Out of the 32 teams, only nine will go on to state. In the past several years, Edgewood sent two teams on every year.
"I'd be happy with three. Four would be outstanding," Barkey said.
State competition is Dec. 11 in Fort Wayne.
Last year one Edgewood team won first in teamwork. Another team placed second in research design.
Barkey said, "You just never know what is going to happen until you go down there."
"It's hard and it's kind of stressful," said student Thomas Schroeder. "Because there's so many ways to go about doing it, there's no right way."
The hardest part about it, Schroeder said, is "agreeing with team members."
However, the best part, said student Taylor Jagger, is "achieving the result you wanted to get. We're slowly getting to the point where we want to be."
Since they also get graded on their projects, student Kiersten Smith said, "It definitely makes you stress out more, but it makes you work harder and you feel good about it."
To help with their robotics, Edgewood has made contact with Biomet, Zimmer and DePuy field representatives. Zimmer is Edgewood's education partners.
Zimmer Senior Research Engineer Casey Harmon and Principle Research Engineer Kim Mimnaugh were in Barkey's classroom Oct. 28 to help the students better understand bioengineering. They brought with them knee and hip implants as well as bone models.
Harmon said the advice they gave the students depended on what their project is. Each team has a different problem. Robotics definitely can help in engineering, she said.
Mimnaugh said they also were helping students devise their plans. By being "outsiders" to the class, she said they are able to give the students an outsider's point of view on their work. The last time they were in the classroom, they helped the students with their research.[[In-content Ad]]WCHS ninth-grader Alexi Demopoulos was on one of the teams last year in Barkey's class. This year, he's a member of the robotics club at the WACC.
"Basically, Barkey got me into (robotics) because I liked last year and it was fun," Demopoulos said. He said he tried the robotics club and got hooked into it.
Barkey's class was very helpful, he said, but the VEX robotics they're using this year are nothing like the Legos®. Barkey's class helped with coming up with ideas and finding ways to combine different people's ideas, he said.
"I haven't really learned C programming, but I've built a lot of the robots," Demopoulos said. Working on the VEX robots has helped him to be a team leader and player. As a main builder, he's learned to combine all the group's ideas together.
"Coming up with the idea for the robot is easy, but actually building it is harder," he said.
Richcreek decided to start a robotics club because Warsaw didn't offer an engineering type of club.
With Warsaw being a community with orthopedic companies that have various engineers working with them, Richcreek said, "We should invest in growing our own in Warsaw."
A goal behind the club is for students to learn engineering concepts and actually build and learn hands-on skills.
Each robot costs $500. Richcreek wrote some proposals to Biomet and Zimmer. Zimmer agreed to sponsor two of the robots, and Biomet sponsored one. She also has written a grant for a fourth robot.
Along with the proposals, Richcreek asked the local orthopedic companies to let the club use some of their engineers to help the club prepare for competition. Engineers from Zimmer and DePuy were on hand helping the students Tuesday afternoon.
Zimmer Senior Research Engineer Craig Fryman said he was there to try and guide the students and help them with the development process. He was trying to provide "structure to the chaos," he said, and get the students to think a couple steps ahead especially with the short timeline they had in building their robots.
"I think they're doing pretty well," Fryman said. "I can tell the students who've done it in previous programs like at Edgewood."
DePuy engineer Dennis Njuguna said he was there to answer any questions, advise them, stop them from going down the wrong path, but not to do anything for them.
"In my opinion, it's breaking down the tasks to smaller steps," he said.
He said the students were doing great. In just a few weeks, the students were almost finished with their robots.
"I just want the students to be able to interact and work with the engineers in our community," said Richcreek. "... I appreciate the engineers that come out and interact with the students because I don't know if students ever had the opportunity to do this before."
She said the students get excited to see the engineers and ask where they're at if they don't show.
The VEX robotics are more advanced than the Legos® because the students can actually cut out the parts and design anything with the kit, she said. Because everyone competing in the contest Saturday has the same kit, everyone's on the same level playing field, she said.
Saturday's competition is in Bloomington. The Indiana Robotic Educators competitions are held throughout Indiana at Ivy Tech locations. There are two separate challenges, the autonomous challenge Cube Conundrum and Hoopla.
In Hoopla, Richcreek said teams have two minutes to get as many rings onto a T-post. The goal is to not hurt other robots in the field. The number of rings a team gets onto the post determines advancement.
Cube Conundrum challenges the participants to design, build and program a robot to retrieve color-coded cubes and deliver them to the proper bins. Each robot will be timed and evaluated on their sorting accuracy with the fastest time and highest score at the end of the day being declared the winner, according to the official rules.
Various monetary awards are given for the contests.
There are 15 students involved in the robotics club. Richcreek said she feels that if she writes more grants and is able to buy more robots, more students will get involved. It started out this year with 30 kids, but got a little bit chaotic since there weren't enough robots.
Initially, the club met once a week. Since they learned about the competition rules, it's been meeting twice a week for 1.5 hours. Some students even work on their robots during their free time at school.
"I think everyone enjoys themselves and the hands-on learning. The interaction with the engineers is invaluable," Richcreek said.
"I actually love robotics," said senior Taylor Zigon. "I have one of those Legos® robotics at home."
He said he's interested in a career in biomedical engineering. He's been doing the programming for his team's robot, and found it wasn't that difficult for him. He had a prior course in Advanced Computer Programming C++ at Warsaw.
"I like it a lot," said freshman James Wynn. "I wasn't able to participate in last year (at Edgewood) because it didn't fit in my schedule, so it's nice to be able to do it this year."
WACC Director Ronna Kawsky said the robotics club isn't opened to just WCHS students. Whitko and Tippecanoe Valley high school students also can be members through the WACC. Currently, all the club members are from WCHS, but she said, as the club grows, they hope they can pull other students in. Eventually, they might be able to offer a class in it, she said.
In Ben Barkey's science honors course at Edgewood Middle School, students spend eight weeks on a robotics unit. At Warsaw Community High School, Warsaw Area Career Center teacher Abbi Richcreek advises the newly formed robotics club. Both groups will take their work to competitions, with Richcreek's group competing Saturday.
In an interview Oct. 28, Barkey said this is the first year that all the teams from his class will compete at the Legos® robotics competition. During the past three years, his class would hold its own contest first and then the top two teams would move on to the next round of competition. With the popularity of it and help from Zimmer this year, all eight teams in his class will compete at state.
Every year the Legos® competition has a new theme. The theme this year is bioengineering, which is a nice theme for the Warsaw community, Barkey said. Warsaw is considered the orthopedic capital of the world.
There are two major parts to the competition. Students have to design a robot to complete tasks on a field, which are bioengineer centered this year. The other half is to identify a problem in the bioengineering field and come up with a solution that will be presented to judges.
"It's a unique beast because there's no procedures or guidelines," said Barkey.
He said the students are experiencing a little bit of the real world, and they have the freedom to choose what they want to do. It's a good project for the students, he said. They'll not only be graded on their robotic project but also their teamwork.
For junior high students, Barkey said it can be a little challenging, but they can't just ignore the teamwork aspect of it.
"We treat it like a sport," Barkey said. Students even stay an hour or more after school to work on their robotics. Some even take time during school breaks for it.
"It's stressful. You throw the grade portion on top of that, and these kids are used to getting A's," Barkey said.
On Nov. 20 at Elkhart Memorial, the students will have their first competition. Out of the 32 teams, only nine will go on to state. In the past several years, Edgewood sent two teams on every year.
"I'd be happy with three. Four would be outstanding," Barkey said.
State competition is Dec. 11 in Fort Wayne.
Last year one Edgewood team won first in teamwork. Another team placed second in research design.
Barkey said, "You just never know what is going to happen until you go down there."
"It's hard and it's kind of stressful," said student Thomas Schroeder. "Because there's so many ways to go about doing it, there's no right way."
The hardest part about it, Schroeder said, is "agreeing with team members."
However, the best part, said student Taylor Jagger, is "achieving the result you wanted to get. We're slowly getting to the point where we want to be."
Since they also get graded on their projects, student Kiersten Smith said, "It definitely makes you stress out more, but it makes you work harder and you feel good about it."
To help with their robotics, Edgewood has made contact with Biomet, Zimmer and DePuy field representatives. Zimmer is Edgewood's education partners.
Zimmer Senior Research Engineer Casey Harmon and Principle Research Engineer Kim Mimnaugh were in Barkey's classroom Oct. 28 to help the students better understand bioengineering. They brought with them knee and hip implants as well as bone models.
Harmon said the advice they gave the students depended on what their project is. Each team has a different problem. Robotics definitely can help in engineering, she said.
Mimnaugh said they also were helping students devise their plans. By being "outsiders" to the class, she said they are able to give the students an outsider's point of view on their work. The last time they were in the classroom, they helped the students with their research.[[In-content Ad]]WCHS ninth-grader Alexi Demopoulos was on one of the teams last year in Barkey's class. This year, he's a member of the robotics club at the WACC.
"Basically, Barkey got me into (robotics) because I liked last year and it was fun," Demopoulos said. He said he tried the robotics club and got hooked into it.
Barkey's class was very helpful, he said, but the VEX robotics they're using this year are nothing like the Legos®. Barkey's class helped with coming up with ideas and finding ways to combine different people's ideas, he said.
"I haven't really learned C programming, but I've built a lot of the robots," Demopoulos said. Working on the VEX robots has helped him to be a team leader and player. As a main builder, he's learned to combine all the group's ideas together.
"Coming up with the idea for the robot is easy, but actually building it is harder," he said.
Richcreek decided to start a robotics club because Warsaw didn't offer an engineering type of club.
With Warsaw being a community with orthopedic companies that have various engineers working with them, Richcreek said, "We should invest in growing our own in Warsaw."
A goal behind the club is for students to learn engineering concepts and actually build and learn hands-on skills.
Each robot costs $500. Richcreek wrote some proposals to Biomet and Zimmer. Zimmer agreed to sponsor two of the robots, and Biomet sponsored one. She also has written a grant for a fourth robot.
Along with the proposals, Richcreek asked the local orthopedic companies to let the club use some of their engineers to help the club prepare for competition. Engineers from Zimmer and DePuy were on hand helping the students Tuesday afternoon.
Zimmer Senior Research Engineer Craig Fryman said he was there to try and guide the students and help them with the development process. He was trying to provide "structure to the chaos," he said, and get the students to think a couple steps ahead especially with the short timeline they had in building their robots.
"I think they're doing pretty well," Fryman said. "I can tell the students who've done it in previous programs like at Edgewood."
DePuy engineer Dennis Njuguna said he was there to answer any questions, advise them, stop them from going down the wrong path, but not to do anything for them.
"In my opinion, it's breaking down the tasks to smaller steps," he said.
He said the students were doing great. In just a few weeks, the students were almost finished with their robots.
"I just want the students to be able to interact and work with the engineers in our community," said Richcreek. "... I appreciate the engineers that come out and interact with the students because I don't know if students ever had the opportunity to do this before."
She said the students get excited to see the engineers and ask where they're at if they don't show.
The VEX robotics are more advanced than the Legos® because the students can actually cut out the parts and design anything with the kit, she said. Because everyone competing in the contest Saturday has the same kit, everyone's on the same level playing field, she said.
Saturday's competition is in Bloomington. The Indiana Robotic Educators competitions are held throughout Indiana at Ivy Tech locations. There are two separate challenges, the autonomous challenge Cube Conundrum and Hoopla.
In Hoopla, Richcreek said teams have two minutes to get as many rings onto a T-post. The goal is to not hurt other robots in the field. The number of rings a team gets onto the post determines advancement.
Cube Conundrum challenges the participants to design, build and program a robot to retrieve color-coded cubes and deliver them to the proper bins. Each robot will be timed and evaluated on their sorting accuracy with the fastest time and highest score at the end of the day being declared the winner, according to the official rules.
Various monetary awards are given for the contests.
There are 15 students involved in the robotics club. Richcreek said she feels that if she writes more grants and is able to buy more robots, more students will get involved. It started out this year with 30 kids, but got a little bit chaotic since there weren't enough robots.
Initially, the club met once a week. Since they learned about the competition rules, it's been meeting twice a week for 1.5 hours. Some students even work on their robots during their free time at school.
"I think everyone enjoys themselves and the hands-on learning. The interaction with the engineers is invaluable," Richcreek said.
"I actually love robotics," said senior Taylor Zigon. "I have one of those Legos® robotics at home."
He said he's interested in a career in biomedical engineering. He's been doing the programming for his team's robot, and found it wasn't that difficult for him. He had a prior course in Advanced Computer Programming C++ at Warsaw.
"I like it a lot," said freshman James Wynn. "I wasn't able to participate in last year (at Edgewood) because it didn't fit in my schedule, so it's nice to be able to do it this year."
WACC Director Ronna Kawsky said the robotics club isn't opened to just WCHS students. Whitko and Tippecanoe Valley high school students also can be members through the WACC. Currently, all the club members are from WCHS, but she said, as the club grows, they hope they can pull other students in. Eventually, they might be able to offer a class in it, she said.
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