schools
january1
An Insider’s Look at Vernonia’s Robotics Program
By Garrett Mullikin
If you have lived in Vernonia
during the past four years, you have
probably heard of the high school robot-
ics team. Vernonia’s FRC (First Robot-
ics Competition) team, 4127 (AKA, the
Loggerbots) has been around for three
years now. This upcoming season start-
ing January 3 rd will mark the 4 th sea-
son they have competed. I myself am a
member of the team, and I’ve been with
it from the start. This is a reminder to
you all that we need all the help possible
to do this, and most of us will be going
off to college next year. We want one last
year to remember what we accomplished
as a team.
The program requires a lot of
resources. According to the official site
(usfirst.org) it costs $5,000 to register
as a veteran team, and it costs $6,000 to
register as a rookie team. To go to the
regional event, it costs $4,000. And to go
to the FIRST championship (which in-
cludes all of FIRST’s programs) it costs
$5,000 just to reserve a space for your
team. This is where fundraising comes
in. Teams usually gain money via grants
and donations. If you wish to donate, it
will go towards paying to go to the re-
gional or towards obtaining parts for our
robot.
Before you donate, I feel it
would be a good idea to give a history
of the team. 4127 was founded back in
2012, by Mr. Brookins. For the first year,
we built a robot to fit the challenge Re-
bound Rumble. The challenge was fun-
damentally all about making robots play
basketball. At that event, we were the
most accurate robot as we literally built
a robot that dunked the balls. For our
second year, the challenge was Aerial
Ascent, in which the challenge was basi-
cally ultimate Frisbee with the option to
ascend a pyramid to score points. That
was our most impressive year, earning
us an overall second place at the region-
als. For year three, this past spring, the
challenge was Aerial Assist, in which a
giant yoga ball was thrown around by
each team and scored. To earn more
points you needed to be more of a team
player. We got into the top eight at the
regional for that one.
The robotics program isn’t lim-
ited to just FRC. FRC is the largest level
of four programs all run by the com-
pany FIRST (For Inspiration and Rec-
New Year’s Resolutions
By Natassia Salinas
With the New Year arriving it’s
time to think about some New Year’s
resolutions. The New Year is a time
of new beginning; a time to set goals.
Your goal may be to quit smoking, or
lose that baby weight. Maybe you want
a new attitude or a chance to become
someone new. But the New Year isn’t
just a time to better yourself, it’s also a
time to help better others or even our
community.
As a student at Vernonia High
School, my personal New Year’s Reso-
lution is to study harder for tests and to
try to get more involved with school ac-
tivities and events.
For our community, here are
some ideas for some New Year’s Reso-
lutions:
Get to know your neighbor:
While living here in and around Ver-
nonia you may only be close to a small
group of friends and not very open to
making new ones. This year, challenge
yourself. Get to know your neigh-
bor. Maybe you’re already friends
with most of your neighbors besides
one family you don’t see much. Invite
them over for dinner or make a small
gift basket to give to them. Getting to
know your neighbors isn’t just an ad-
vantage for yourself, it’s an advantage
for our community. As Jennifer Pahlka,
founder and executive director of Code
for America says, “When one neighbor
helps another, we strengthen our com-
munities.”
Become an optimist: Maybe
in the past you have been struggling,
whether it’s dealing with your debt or
maybe the loss of a friend or family
member. Maybe this year, you want to
change your attitude and want to look
at life in a more positive way. This is
a chance to take all the bad things that
have happened in your life and use that
to your advantage and turn them into
strengths. Developing your weaknesses
into strengths can be a powerful moti-
vator for change. Creating a different
view on life, even when life isn’t at its
best, can help us appreciate it more and
allow us to treat ourselves and others in
a more positive way.
Be a part of the community:
Making a local effort towards our com-
ognition of Science and Technology).
The lowest level is Jr. FLL (First Lego
League). Higher than that is FLL. Then,
a level before FRC, there is FTC (First
Tech Challenge). This year in 2014, two
FTC teams were founded. The middle
school team, 9262 (AKA, Squirrel?),
and the high school team, 9263 (AKA,
the Redshirts). FIRST programs work
by announcing a special challenge for
the year, and it changes every year. The
challenge the FTC teams are facing is
called Cascade Effect, and the point is
to get balls into tubes. The tubes score
points per centimeter, with the shortest
having one point per centimeter, and the
tallest having three points per centime-
ter. FTC’s season starts up around Octo-
ber of each year and usually runs into the
January of the next year.
So now, let me introduce you
to some of the members of the team.
I’m the strategist and idea creator, and
I expect I will be doing website stuff
for us this upcoming season. Our main
programmer (essentially, programmers
make the programs the robots use to
compete) is Jacob Eyrrick, a fellow se-
nior. Our other programmer is Andrew
Jennings. On electrical, we have Connor
munity only makes all of us stronger.
From organizing a fundraiser to helping
with a local food drive, any amount of
effort can still make a big difference.
But maybe you don’t have time, or are
too preoccupied with your own life to
make time to help someone else. Being
a part of the community isn’t just go-
ing out of your way and being a part of
an event. Recycling is one way to make
our community a better place. Just think
if everyone made some small effort to
improve the community how much we
could accomplish together.
So what will you do in this new
year? Just remember that a new year is
a new beginning and we all can make
a difference, whether it’s for ourselves,
our families, our neighborhoods or the
community.
Natassia Salinas is a student at Verno-
nia High School who is exploring writ-
ing for her Senior Project.
2015
9
Larke, and Kaitlyn Eyrrick. On fabrica-
tion, we have Nicky Rainbolt. We also
have mentors guiding the process. Mr.
Urban (grade school special education
teacher) is our school liaison. Our men-
tors serve as teachers to us. They are
mostly community members that have
expertise in areas related to robotics.
The point of the program is to
teach kids and teens the importance of
teamwork, and get them interested in
the world of robotics and engineering. I
probably won’t end up in engineering as
a career, but who knows? Even if your
child doesn’t like engineering, I recom-
mend they join any of the teams. There
is plenty to do outside of building the ro-
bot, like fundraising and website design.
If you want to help out, donate
time or money. It takes a lot to do this,
and we need all the help we can get.
That’s not even mentioning the fact that
if we win the regional, we get to go to
the World championship (yes, this is not
just here in America, this is all over the
world). Qualifying for regionals alone is
a hassle, getting to worlds takes a really
good team. It’s not about the robot, it’s
about the team.
FIRST recognizes team ac-
complishments over what happens at
the regionals and worlds. The highest
award any team can earn is the Chair-
man’s award. The Chairman’s award is
given to teams who have the greatest
continued on page 13
Baby & Toddler
Time
January 14
11:00 - 11:30
2nd Wednesday of month
Songs, rhymes
very short books
toys and bubbles!
For ages 0-3
older siblings welcome
Vernonia Public Library
