Eating lead in 2000

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Posted by michael bastoni.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Coach on team #23, PNTA, from Plymouth North High School and Boston Edison Co.

Posted on 6/1/99 8:24 PM MST


In Reply to: bingo posted by Ken Patton on 6/1/99 4:01 PM MST:




I would love to do nothing more than share a cold drink on my porch with
the people who contribute to this page...agree or disagree it does not
matter...what matters is that we are 'outing' what is essential to this
program....because we are this program...the kids, the technical folks,
the teachers and the parents.....and what we believe is essential, is what
is essential. And there are some striking comonalities surfacing in this
dialogue as well as some strongly held opinions...good show..strong opinions
demonstrate passion and passion is the antidote to apathy.

For instance...Dan holds strongly to student involvement...to the belief
that high school students can do the 'engineering'...and properly supported
they can...I have seen too many examples of what young men and women have
achieved to think otherwise....

But let me please go on record as being highly respective of anyone with
a technical degree, and exponentially respective of those who hold
advanced degrees....and so it goes.

And the FIRST games as they exist presently
are at just about the right level for high school students to participate
fully...but to participate fully they need instruction and lots and lots of
time to gain experience and insight... Teachers cannot take 30 students and bring them
all up to speed on the intricacies of electro-mechanical design,Materials Science,
Machine tool processes, Microcontroller programming, Desktop Publishing
AutoCad visualization and 3DMax animation techniques....enough to be competitive...in six weeks...
but we can over a period of 5 years...Because given the time, resources and 'reason'
to do it...the students develop these skills themselves. Trust me on this,
They really do. But remember the important part of the phrase...'Given the time and resources
and reason...' The reason they take the time to do it is because they want
the achievement, the recognition of the achievement and the knowledge
gained through their effort...And while I am very
biased towards my kids...I will concede that they are more the normative
example as opposed to the extreme. And I freely admit to being more the 'keeper'
of our lab facility, rather than the director.

NOTE: The Pappalardo Mechanical Engineering Lab at a small university in
Cambridge Massachusetts (MIT) exists soley for the reason that engineering
students should get their hands dirty building machines...even if they will
never put their hands to the work again,,,,cause it provides deeper understanding
if the kids do it THEMSELVES (and many other engineering schools
hold to the same belief).....hey..if it's good enough for MIT...it works for me.


What I am asking for is the time...the time to work out the design
on the playing field with the kids and the support group, not under the pressure
cooker of the 6 week limitation...The time to really 'Work Out' the design, to see
it to it's logical conclusion...to continue the design process for a period of
2 or 3 seasons before we change it again....to have the time to develop the
solution and bring it to maturity and beyond...before we have to throw it
aside and start the process all over again...I am trying desperately to
relieve burn out...not increase it.

I do not look at playing with the machines as a trivial exercise, but rather
as a test bed for incremental improvements and 'Proof of Concept' trials.
This is how we learn....Learning is something I think I have some insight into.
I also look at playing with the machines as a time where students, teachers
and engineers and parents can come together to share the gift of themselves.
Just as Mike Aubry so clearly pointed out.( Great perspective Mike, right on)

JJ you KNOW that you have deeply impacted at least a few of the students on
our team...and it did not happen during the building of your robot or ours..
It happened at a time when we came together to play with the robots...which
in reality was not playing with them per se...but a legitimate extension of
the design process...

Eureka! That's it...I have come incrementally closer to formulating my
position...I did not intend the phrase, play with the robots, in the sense that it appeared.
I meant that if we continue to play with the robots we are in fact simply
extending the design phase...a design phase that is far more sustainable
over the years and far more beneficial to the students in the long run...

And hey...I'm not going to war over this either, because I value all your
opinions far too much...and I clearly appreciate that the POV of
an engineering volunteer will be understandably different from that of an educator
and for very good reasons....and so the discussion continues as it should.
I for one am coming closer to an understanding of what we are doing
for these children, and for all the imperfections, and personal biasis, it is
'A good thing'.

One last thing....

I am particularly attracted to the other elephant...the one JJ talks about
where the professional engineers with major (read NASCAR) corporate backing
compete with robots that look like something out of ALIEN...you know, where
Sirgony Weaver gets into the hydraulic actuated persoanl maximizer and gets
the job done...(This is admittedly straight from JJ in a sane moment)
I find this possibility VERY attractive....now that's inspiration. Leave
the little 130 pounders to the kids...I sooo think that is what Dean's vision
will evolve to....and then the kids and teachers and parents will have their significant
involvement...and we can watch Chrysler knock end effectors with Coke and Toyota
at the Meadowlands, or in the Superdome and then go home and tune up
our robots to be like THEM....Stone Cold Steve Austin ain't
even ready for this....

mr.b