|
|
|
![]() |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
![]() |
| Thread Tools | Rate Thread | Display Modes |
|
#31
|
||||
|
||||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Quote:
Not that inspiration is even an inherently better or worse mission than education, but curious. I'm still curious to know your average four-year annualized budget. You've brought up some cool sponsorship tips (I love the stakeholder model), but it doesn't really sound more cost-effective than KelliV's #3. |
|
#32
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Quote:
What about the high school freshman who's first year is an "FRC year?" Then they step backwards? What about the middle school senior who ends with BEST? What about the elementary student in their last year who gets to draw a robot the year after competing in FLL? Has your "current recommendation" been implemented anywhere? What are the pros and cons that have been recorded? We all know that master gardeners have an amazing system going for them, but I'm not sure how well the ideas can be transferred to educational robotics. [sarcasm]I propose an alternate system. Ants all live in a colony. We could be like ants. Enforce every team to collaborate, share resources, and share tools. This saves money for everyone![/sarcasm] Last edited by Gregor : 30-11-2012 at 00:06. Reason: misspelling |
|
#33
|
||||
|
||||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Quote:
I don't want to beat the dead horse currently in front of us, but swapping programs on an annual basis is like buying a new workstation every year: I don't buy a new workstation because minor upgrades make much more sense money wise. |
|
#34
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Siri,
Great point, I agree there are two group of students to be considered : 1) Pre-Disposed 2) Under Represented. In group 1 usually the community is well resourced and just need some guidance. An example would be a parent that is an engineer in a suburb that has a girl that that would like to compete but there are no teams in the school. In this case we work to find the closest program and give them contact information and help mentor the team for the first year, modeling to the parent what are the behaviors of a mentor. Usually by second year we just visit on kickoff and a week before competition. In group 2 there are no well defined resources, like in an urban area in a food desert, in this case we work with the community leaders to identify the resources and needs, we develop a plan and "challenges" for the community to meet. An example is that we had 6 elementary schools that wanted to do robotics, so we gave them a challenge to draw a "gardening robot". They also sold produce from their gardens. They raised by their own $700 by selling produce, cookies and game tickets. We matched with sponsors for a total of $2,000 in assets they currently have, but each school have $300 in assets in the form of a LEGO Mind storm as a minimum. We are still working with them and we are looking to work with them for another 11 years. This is year 2. We switch our focus but it is dependent on the team if they want to "switch in competition", what we have found is that a group of them continue while other start the new competitions. I seen some teams that do both BEST and FRC, where it is required for Freshmen to participate on BEST if they want to do FRC. The largest budget recommendation is FRC at $10,000, FTC at $1,200 and FLL at $600. BEST we budget at $100. On the demo robot path : $300 LEGO Mindstorm, $500 Quadcopter, $1,000 VEX, $5000 underwater and $10,000 unmmaned vehicle. Cheers, Mark Last edited by xitaqua : 30-11-2012 at 02:46. |
|
#35
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Gregor,
The ideal plan is to have all three levels ( elementary, middle,high school) participating, a lot times it is not a choice but more a need. I have seen teams that done FRC, and because of different factors, they go to FTC for a couple years. Every case is different. We have 12 communities we focus, 11 is U.S and 1 in Brazil. I hope to write a book someday on all the pros and cons, but for right now I am working on case study papers, I plan to present on our work with urban schools in St. Louis next year at Tennessee Technology University in Cookesville for 2013 ASEE Southeastern Section Annual Conference. I will upload all my papers on the CD. Here is a video on BEST Robotics, we helped start a hub in Sedalia, MO. A team in Ladue, MO(well resourced community) started on BEST, now they do FIRST. https://vimeo.com/30973757 In Lewis County, MO (rural area). We are currently doing cardboard robots, we hope to migrate to LEGO Mindstorm next year. https://vimeo.com/45783923 Cheers, Mark. Quote:
|
|
#36
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Interesting thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=109751 Our recommendation in this case would be to take whatever money the team have and buy LEGO Mindstorms and do summer camps for middle school and elementary students at $50-$100. On second year use the funds to participate on FTC. Third year register for BEST, continue doing summer camp and demo the FTC robot in the community to raise money for FRC. On fourth year register for FRC. In parallel, identify parents that would be interested in running for school board. In my city, registration starts is in December and election is in April. Cheers, Mark. |
|
#37
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Gregor,
Master Gardeners know what they will plant for many years ahead, I think for four years, so they rotate their crops to minimize disease and also replenish the land nutrients. In the same way different robotics competitions draw on different resources, and rotating on it gives an opportunity to replenish it. Cheers, Mark. Quote:
|
|
#38
|
||||
|
||||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Quote:
This had gone totally over my head. How many of your teams actually rotate (as opposed to simply scaling up)? |
|
#39
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Siri,
Let's say you team decide to try this out : 1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps. 2) FTC 3) BEST Robotics 4) FRC 1) The team would have a meeting in December 2012 and invite parents in the middle school to attend. One H.S senior would lead the project of having a summer camp in 2013, to teach LEGO Mind storm to the students to raise money. 2) In 2014 the team would have a meeting in August and invite parents of H.S freshmen to attend to learn about FTC. One H.S Senior would coach the team. Also another one to do the summer camp. 3) In 2015 the team would have a meeting in August and invite parents of H.S freshmen to attend to learn about BEST. One H.S Senior would coach the team. Also another one do the summer camp. And another one lead the efforts to modify FTC robot for demo since you wouldn't be competing. 4) In 2016 : Jan-FRC May- Summer Camp LEGO, August-BEST Robotics, OCT - FTC Make a requirement all freshmen required to be on BEST or FTC to be part of FRC. I think the interest of the kids on the different programs will vary, and you won't know until you see..... There is no "magic bullet" every learning community is different. My goal is to engage as many students as possible while keeping teams small, have 2 students per area (systems,chassis,manipulators,SW, electronics). Have them work in pairs (news/experienced). |
|
#40
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
We got a group of 6 girls in one learning community, this year we started on FTC, next year I hope we will register on FRC and have them not to compete on FTC, but instead modify their current robot, and them a year later have them hold summer camp for middle school and a year later do BEST robotics, and a year from there do FRC competition and just do demos for FTC and BEST on the year competing on FRC....but anyway that's just a "draft" I am sure things will be different depending what they want to do.
When not competing, we hope to be modifying the current hardware for doing demos in the community, on fourth year forward we will have 3 teams: A competition Team and 2 Demo teams. In addition we will have a Student Coach for Summer Camp. Louie is currently a cardboard robot, in which eventually will have FTC parts replacing the cardboard. Here is an e-mail from the teacher (coach): The team had a great meeting Tuesday! Special Thank you goes to the Girl Scouts, Amber, Dave and Kevin who really came through for us! It was like Christmas. Our floor tiles are down, the router and hub worked beautifully to connect the Samantha module and now we can use Louie without the USB cord! Thanks to Kerry who worked with H. to get Louie configured with the Samantha Module. C., J., T., and A. did some great brainstorming on the arm and the team have a great plan. Last edited by xitaqua : 30-11-2012 at 13:57. |
|
#41
|
||||
|
||||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Quote:
As far as a kids' interest/inspiring those not predisposed, but concern is not just that they'll have different interest levels in different programs, but that the change itself is unnecessarily difficult. However, I had no idea that the groups were so small and operable on an individual basis. If you're not losing the edge-case kids, then I guess there's no worry. I'd envisioned you like rotating the entire state of Delaware (re: FIRST State) through a different program every year, so my head was spinning. How well does it work to limit FRC teams to 10 students (2 per area)? That seems like it would actually skyrocket the cost density (geographically), not to mention really pressure the small teams. Do you still reach outlier students with the potentially lower word-of-mouth traffic? |
|
#42
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Hah....hah....there could be a 5th year.
Well I am just giving you examples, some teams continue on to college.... I know of a group of FIRST Robotics Seniors that go to same college and now work on Quad-copters and participate on Quad-copter competitions, while other go to do the summer camp as I mentioned or others go on to mentor their old FIRST Robotic teams. Are the seniors on your team involved, or does it stop at the 4th year of High School ?. I think 12 is a good number, 30 is too big but that's my personal opinion. I usually don't get involved with "changing teams" I usually work with new teams, or teams that are facing some kind of challenge and ask me to get involved. You bring a good point in the cost density, and that's one of the things we look comparing the total cost of the program compared with total volunteers hours the team do for a season. Example : Let's say I have robotics program that total cost is $10,000 a year and I have 10 volunteers and each volunteer do 40 hrs a season, then we have 400 hrs for one season, if we say that the volunteer hour is valued at $20, we have $8,000 So the Return on investment (ROI) is $8,000/$10,000 = 0.8 Compared to a program that is $1,200 for 6 volunteers at 10 hrs a season. We have 60 hrs * $20 = $1,200, giving us an ROI = 1.0. So in this case the lower cost program is more efficient. There is a lot analysis that can be done, but mostly I help new teams and usually the teams are small and the mentors are able to get everyone engaged. I see on your bio, you are in PA. If you are interested in starting a virtual learning community in PA for FRC, let me know. We would meet on a telecom at 8PM Central time on Mondays, starting in January and go until Championship. The telecom is for mentors/coaches, and I would require 3 to 5 mentors committed to attend the telecom, I prefer they be from different teams in PA, but it is not a requirement. I currently hold one for SoCal at 9PM Central time on Mondays. And another telecom for Arizona mentors on as needed basis. Cheers, Mark. Quote:
|
|
#43
|
||||
|
||||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Quote:
Quote:
What does a virtual learning community actually do? EDIT: we appear to have hijacked this thread... ![]() |
|
#44
|
||||
|
||||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
Would it be possible to create a new thread for discussion of these systems? The conversation has moved away from its original topic and I don't want people to keep thinking the article linked by the OP is current(it took me a while to realize it was a year old). Thanks!!
|
|
#45
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger
I have posted the initial thread about "rotating robotics competition" on "Mark Chew Academy" Facebook, check us out and like us !.
In regards to the original question in which we hijacked: Team 1073 seems to be doing great (http://theforceteam.com/) They are integrated with the other robotics competition and organizations such as Boys Scouts and Girls Scouts which sponsor robotics teams. Their learning community is comprised of FRC,FLL,Junior FLL, Girls Scouts and Boys Scouts. |
![]() |
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | Rate This Thread |
|
|