January is National Mentoring Month, which provides us with the perfect opportunity to hit the pause button and take a few minutes to reflect on the tremendous impact that adult mentors can have on young people. As with many other youth-serving organizations, volunteer mentors are critically important to our ability to achieve our mission and transform the lives of young people across the world.
Some folks have expressed an interest in details about how FIRST STRONGHOLD came about. I wanted to explain a little bit about that, and also explain the part our friends, FRC Team 1189, The Gearheads, from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, USA, played in it.
Hashtags and robots and prizes – oh my!
The 2016 FedEx Innovation Challenge, an interactive social-media competition, is back and this year will be open to all FRC and FTC teams in the US. The Innovation Challenge takes place from January 9 – February 21, 2016.
Part problem solving, part creative challenge, this fun and engaging competition will consist of math and science problems, scavenger hunt activities, and more. Best of all, it’s super easy to play.
Through Q612 on the FRC Q&A we learned that we made a mistake on the drawing for the Rock Wall. The Rock Wall is actually wider than indicated on the drawing.
Adorned on a landscape background, sitting in posters across classrooms, a Thomas Edison quote reads "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."1 It is an inspiring thought that is very easy to say in hindsight. But what if you are on trial #1,912 or #3,504 and all you have faced thus far is failure?
Rachel Holladay is a third year undergraduate student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science with a double major in Robotics. She is a researcher with Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute in the Personal Robotics Lab, advised by Siddhartha Srinivasa. She is primarily interested in the intersection of manipulation and human-robot interaction, with a focus on robot gestures and constrained motion. At Carnegie Mellon, she is heavily involved with several groups that promote more diversity in the computing field. In addition, she is an eleven year FIRST Robotics veteran, now an alumna of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 1912 “Combustion” and a mentor of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 3504 “Girls of Steel”.
Yep, Stop Build Day is coming, and winter (at least for those teams in the Northern Hemisphere – but we love you, too, teams in the Southern Hemisphere!) is already here.
FIRST LEGO League has been inspiring children since 1998.
Download past challenges and mission model building instructions.
Recently, Texas joined a growing list of states that have launched initiatives to make robotics a full-fledged sport, accessible to all students. In the following article, Ray Almgren, Chairman, FIRST in Texas and Vice President, National Instruments shares why school-based programs like this are so important to the future workforce of the United States.
Robotics is the sport for the 21st century.