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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 2017)
schools february16 2017 Vernonia Robotics Programs participants in the 7th to 12th grades. Volunteer Jeff Ely has served as the lead mentor for this program for several years and has a handful of parents helping as mentors as well. This program is very similar to the FRC, just on a smaller scale. They too compete with other pub- lic and private schools and organiza- tions. The competition area is roughly the size of half a basketball court and the robots can fi t on a table top in size. Other than size, this program is very similar to FRC. Both programs require the ro- bots to operate autonomously through computer programs generated by stu- dents as an initial challenge during the competition. The robots are then operat- ed by remote control by students for the duration of the competition, who move the robots around the playing surface while attempting to complete tasks and accumulate points. There are programs through FIRST for grade school aged students, but currently those are not options in Ver- nonia. There is a new program, mentored by new fi rst and second grade teacher Debbie Taylor and her husband, which is offering an after school science club that helps teach many aspects that the robot- ics teams work on, plus more. This is an exciting addition for the school’s STEM programing. (See Schools Update article on page 13 for more on this program.) Vernonia’s FTC teams just completed their fi rst competition at the end of January at Oregon State Univer- sity. The two teams, Squirrel?! and Red Shirts, fi nished 8th and 11th in the com- petition out of 26 teams. “This is another strong showing, and Oregon is known for having some very strong teams nationally,” said men- tor Ely. The Red Shirts ended up 503-429-7101 Shl Onoohmn 19025 Vnncr Qn`c Udqmnmh`, NQ 97064 continued from front page qualifying for the Super Regional Tournament on the weekend of February 12th. The Squirrel?! team just missed the cut-off. Carly Bergren working on programing the FTC robot. Other volunteer mentors with the team include Josh and Kat Leach, Jake and Chrissy Bergren and Susan Ely. Between both teams there are eight student members and six adult mentors. This year’s challenge is called Velocity Vortex and involves both au- tonomous and operator directed com- ponents. In this challenge, robots work in teams of two against another team as they collect and shoot whiffl e balls, change beacon colors to their teams’ col- or, and the greatest challenge, grasping and lifting a 24 inch diameter yoga ball fi ve feet in the air and place it on a rotat- ing pedestal. The only limitation for the robot is that it fi t within an 18 inch cube prior to starting the game. Once the game is underway it can expand to any size. “This starting limitation forces the team to think of creative ways to compress motors, servos, sensors, drive systems and electronics into a sturdy design that can score points and handle the abuse of a robot collision,” says Ely. Vernonia has had two FTC O noohmn O `hmshmf Khbdmrdc Anmcdc Hmrtqdc BBL#90548 Grey Dawn Gallery 879 Bridge St. (503) 429-2787 Photography - Bronze Jewelry - Glasswork Pottery - Custom Framing www.greydawngallery.com Featuring the finest in northwest art 11 teams for the last three years. Each year the challenge is unique and the Verno- nia teams work side by side in coordi- nation and cooperation in design and construction, thus allowing for a greater opportunity to learn and share. “The fl exibility of multiple teams and months to build result in unique designs for the competition,” explains Ely. “This year, the teams both chose to drive on treads (vs. wheels), but one team chose to focus on sensors and shooting a whiffl e ball, while the other solely focused on grasp- ing and lifting the yoga ball. Both strate- gies can be successful if done effectively and effi ciently.” Aubrey Leach is a sophomore student competitor with Vernonia’s FTC team and explained that the team keeps a required engineering notebook to docu- ment their project. The notebook ex- plains the team’s design concept and in- cludes team and mentors bios, a log that refl ects student’s thoughts, successes, and strategies for improvements, along with how they contributed to the proj- ect from each day, photographs of their Visit US today for all your financial needs! Juli, Teresa, Margy & Joy Josh, Josh, Teresa, Nola, Stepheny 905 Bridge Street (503) 429-6271 Aubrey Leach and Devon Bergren working on the FTC robot. progress, a list of the materials they used and their costs, and blueprint drawings of their robot. 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