Robotics Season has Arrived!!!

The craziest, most adrenaline-filled time of the school year has arrived!  On Saturday, January 3rd the Washburn Millerbots (Team 2549) attended the 2009 FIRST Robotics kick-off at the University of Minnesota, and thus started the 6-week build season that will dominate my thinking through the middle of February.  

The challenge this year is called LUNACY.  

In this year's game, robots will be designed to pick up 9" game balls and score them in trailers hitched to their opponents' robots for points during a 2 minute and 15 second match. Additional points are awarded for scoring a special game ball, the Super Cell, in the opponents' trailers during the last 20 seconds of the match.  LUNACY is played on a low-friction floor, which means teams must contend with the laws of physics.  (press release www.usfirst.org)

Our team is busy brainstorming, sketching, and determining what strategy to use when competing in a game that is mimicking the 1/6th gravity environment of the moon.  Strategies from the past just won't do.

In the news...

Wednesday was busy day.  During the school day I took a group of Washburn girls on a High Tech Girls Society field trip to Lockheed Martin to celebrate Women in Engineering.  We left at 8:30 and returned at 2:30.  They listened to presentations related to all fields of engineering, toured the facility, built electromagnetic motors, and participated in a tower building contest.  Whilst all of this was happening I was chosen to be interviewed by WCCO News.  The video can be viewed at http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=50389@wcco.dayport.com

Upon returning to school I took another group of Washburn students to the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology.  They are participating in a program called, A Taste of Science and Engineering, and will get a chance to work with college students, professors, and organizations to learn about the different math, engineering, and physical science programs at the U.