Contact Information
Richard McClellan - Lead Mentor -
richard.mcclellan@gmail.com
John Sperry - Teacher Sponsor -
john.w.sperry@austinisd.org
Aaron Osmer - Team President -
ajosmer@gmail.com
You may contact Aaron Osmer for technical questions, website comments, or team information.
Team Story
From humble beginnings, Anderson robotics started with seven students, one teacher, and three highly influential mentors. The team decided to participate in the BEST competition. Students learned a lot, starting with no tools, no knowledge of robotics, and in a make-shift shop in the back of the teacher sponsor's classroom. Each students contributed their own unique set of skills. Over the six weeks of the inaugural competition students grew immensely-their skill with tools increased, they operated as an efficient, close-knit team, their creativity soared. With each week that passed the team grew more and more focused, working more intensely and spending more free time on the project. In the end was a real sense of pride felt for the great things accomplished in such a short period of time. After this first competition the team was hooked on robotics and made a seemingly rash decision-compete in FIRST. Team membership, robotics knowledge, and an overall feeling of excitement for this new path were all on the rise. The complexity and resources needed with new challenge required support from both corporate groups and a facility to construct the robot in. With support from National Instruments, the University of Texas and many other private donors Anderson Robotics, The Austin Cans, was able to begin construction of their first FIRST robot. With hours of work, the aide of many dedicated and competent mentors and many sleepless nights we were able to construct a great robot. The product of our labor was the Rookie All-Star award. We were honored and ecstatic to receive such an award. This success allowed us to travel to and participate in the FIRST Robotics national level competition. At nationals we had the privilege of meeting many experienced veteran teams from who we could learn. This year, 2008, we are participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition for the second time. We went into this year's competition with a veteran outlook on things, more knowledge of management, the build process and public relations.
Our Vision of Robotics
Our goals within our team are to improve on communication, technical expertise, operating efficiency, and increase our membership, which in two years has doubled in number from 12 to 25. It is important for us maintain diversity in membership, which is currently about 50% female. One of our most important goals is to secure more resources, to ensure not only our survival as a competitive team, but our growth too. This year, the team created a parent booster club and is in the application process for becoming a 501c3 nonprofit organization. This will allow our team to access corporate funding opportunities.
Goals within our school are to steadily increase the number of robotics/engineering courses offered and the number of students enrolling in them. This year, for the first time in the history of our school, our principal allowed Robotics I to be offered. The focus of this course is computer applications, specifically programming robot C using NXT kits and engineering design using Solidworks. For this new course, the school provided us with approximately $18ꯠ worth of NXT kits and laptops, and will possibly be providing us with a dozen more laptops next year. The school has also committed to beginning a three-year strand of robotics/engineering courses to be phased in over the next two years. The second course, Robotics II will cover the fundamentals of mechanical and electrical engineering. The third course, Robotics III, will integrate the first two years of study together in a rigorous, research-based course. Mr. Sperry, the course instructor and team sponsor, has made it his goal to become certified in Career & Technology Education and to enroll in a Master' s degree program at the University of Texas at Austin in Engineering Education. These efforts will allow to program to continue to qualify for more course resources and allow students to receive college credit. Mr. Sperry will continue to develop and refine this curriculum and has already presented robotics curriculum for other teachers at the NSTA convention in Austin last year. Our mentors have already provided several workshops for students at Anderson and other schools in using Solidworks and Labview. We plan to increase the number of workshops to assist new emerging Austin-area teams. Our overarching goal is for our robotics program to serve as successful model for other schools to emulate.
Our goals within the community are to help start and mentor new teams. Build awareness of robotics/engineering through media/community events. We plan to continue our public outreach efforts to about a dozen local elementary and middle schools and local groups. This year Anderson will be hosting the 2008 BEST competition, an FLL qualifying tournament, and for the second year, the "Robot Roundup". We hope to continue to receive exposure in the Austin American Statesman and local television coverage. We hope to work with Jane Young to create a committee for obtaining and allocating resources for current and future Austin Area teams.
Since Then
Since our inception two years ago, we have already established a high level of commitment to:
1) Improving the quality and magnitude of our robotics program.
2) Promoting the robotics and engineering interest with the community through our outreach efforts, hosting of tournaments, and media exposure.
3) Sharing knowledge by holding seminars for all area FIRST teams, covering Labview, Solidworks, and general information about FIRST for this year' s 4 new teams.
4) Striving to win the chairman’s award this year.
Resources
Our goal at Anderson Robotics is to design, build and operate an effective robot system. Not only that, but we aim to help educate students and others within our community about the importance of engineering and the sciences. We strive to help create and support new FIRST and FIRST Lego league teams. Our wish is to build our program and bring in additional resources, so that we can have access to a machine shop of our own.
Catalyst for Change (Our Aggressive Efforts)
Anderson Robotics focuses not only on robot building, but also on helping other teams and diversifying our own. We communicate regularly with local teams and have organized various training and workshops. Anderson hosted a SolidWorks software training. We invited local teams to participate in this training that allowed them to learn how to use a CAD program. We also hosted a battery charger building workshop.
Learning From a Different Perspective (Why Robotics is Important in Schools)
Education has bigger missions, goals: we have tasted new type of learning, one in which students do not simply go through meaningless exercises, but apply their skills to a real life goal.
We hope to eventually be a well-known team within robotics community as a role model and important organizer of events. It is a major goal of ours to carve out place for ourselves within the school, to make ourselves well known and respected within the student body. We wish to add to the school and the community. We want do to do something much bigger than just robotics. We are not just creating future scientists and engineers, but creating future thinkers, people that can go out into the world and solve problems, and help better society and our environment.
Design Process
Our team has a structured process of design creation and implementation. We first have all the members draft up individual designs and share their ideas with the group. Eventually a consensus on a few designs is arrived upon. After this stage, the designs are looked upon with more scrutiny to figure out which is the most viable engineering project. In the final stage the top three designs are presented and analyzed for their strengths and weaknesses. A group consensus is finally reached and the robot is built.
