Category Archives: Robotics

An all-girl robotics team from Sunset High School is the first ever Dallas ISD team to qualify for the Robotics World Championships in FTC.

Sunsets 8811 Robo* Bison Amistad team is competing in this weeks World Championship in FTC in Houston. Its a grueling four-day, 128 team competition against the best in the world.

As a young woman, society doesnt expect me to be involved in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) field, so joining robotics was a great challenge and reward, said Karen Garcia, one of the four members of the advancing team. I never expected myself to be so involved and interested in STEM, but FIRST Robotics helped me acknowledge its value and importance.

First Tech Challenge (FTC) is a robotics competition for teams in 7th 12th grades. Students are challenged to design, build, program and operate robots that compete in a head to head challenge. The competition begins at a local level and teams can advance through multiple stages to reach the world level.

The Sunset Robotics team advanced out of the Super Regional Championship held March 23 25 in Athens, Georgia. They previously advanced out of a local tournament and the North Texas Regional Championship to qualify for the spot at the Super Regional Championship.

Three years ago our goal was to make it to regionals as a rookie team, said Gary Dimanh, coach of the robotics team. We qualified for regionals and super regionals our first year, but after reaching super regionals, we set our goal to make it to Worlds.

The First Tech Challenge also challenges students to participate in community programs and provides several college scholarship opportunities. Sunset Robotics met that challenge by reaching out to middle school students to recruit and promote STEM skills, communicating with local churches, organizations, and professional engineers and participating in the Dallas ISD STEAM Fest and Fair.

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Sunset's all-girl robotics team makes Dallas ISD history - Dallasweekly

Just a few months ago, not many knew about these five fourth-graders from a low-income community in Indianapolis.

But now, the Panther Bots, a thriving robotics team at Pleasant Run Elementary School, have become the face of a success story about a group of kids who were taunted with racial slurs but were too determined to let that affect their confidence. Earlier this month, they found themselves being honored on the Senate floor of the Indiana Statehouse.The group travels to Louisville on Sundayto compete in a worldwide robotics contest.

I cried. I literally cried. Im so emotional right now because I know its hard for them, said Darshie Owens, whose son, 10-year-old Elijah Goodwin, is a member of the Panther Bots. I mean, like, going through the robotics competition. Theres not a lot of African American students and not a lot of Hispanic students in robotics competitions.

Getting to that point had not been easy.

In early February, after the studentswon a local robotics challenge a steppingstone to qualify for a state robotics championship a couple of competitors from other schools were heard screaming, You need to go back to Mexico!

[A teacher asked kids how comfortable they are around black men, Muslims. She was fired.]

Diocelina Herrera, a parent of one of the Panther Bots, said she heard the tauntsafter the competitionas she and her family werewalking to the parking lot and were about to leave. She said she also heard rumblings from fellow parentswho referred to the winning students asMexicans.

We didnt say anything. We went to our car and left, Herrera said. We didnt want to get in an argument with these kinds of people.

Herreras son, Angel Herrera-Sanchez, was saddened by the incident, said Panther Bots coach Lisa Hopper. The 9-year-old wondered if he had done something to make people angry at him.

You were fine. You shouldnt worry about their actions. The way you guys competed and the way you held yourself at the competition was perfect, and were so proud of you,' Hopper recalled telling the boy and his teammates. I just had to assure the kids that they had done everything correctly, and it wasnt due to anything they had done.

The robotics team at Pleasant Run, where about 85 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, was started last year, thanks to a grant from the office of the citys former mayor, Greg Ballard. The members were chosen after a series of tryouts in which fourth-graders who were recommended by their teachers were asked to build a Lego kit without instructions.

[These California teachers mocked students for skipping school on immigrant boycott day]

We just kind of watched to see who stepped up to the plate and took leadership roles, whos good at organizing and communicating and who works well with others, Hopper said.

Five students three Latinos and two African Americans were selected. Elijah and Angel, along with 9-year-old Devilyn Bolyard, 10-year-old Jose Verastegui and 9-year-old Manuel Mendez, followeda robotics curriculum in which they were taught engineering and the basics of how to build a robot.

Thestudents built four prototypes before coming up with the final product they presented at competitions, Hopper said.They also did extensive research on self-driving cars and applied what theyhad learnedto the programming of their robot.

In late February, the team won best robot design during the statewide VEX IQ robotics competition and qualified for the VEX IQ worldrobotics tournament, a three-day event that starts Sunday at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville.

These five kids are some of the brightest and best kids Ive had in my whole teaching career, Hopper said. Theyre a dream team, and its been wonderful working with them.

Beforejoining the robotics team, none of the children had expressed an interest in engineering. But theyve now discovered passions they didnt have before.

Angel, for example, had little interest in school and had poorgrades last year. Now, hes at the top of his class and is already contemplating a career in engineering, said Herrera, his mother.Manuel had a similar transformation. Hopper said the boys mother told her that he used to hate waking up every morning to go school. Now, he would just jump out of bed, Hopper said.

[A dreamer posted a selfie with her tax return. Then came the trolls.]

Elijah, however, has always been interested in academics. He loves scienceand math and is a member of the student council, said Owens, his mother. Hehas thought about becoming an FBI agent, a politician or a basketball player.

After news of the racial slur incidentcame out last month, scores of strangers have shown their support for the Panther Bots.More than 200 people raised about $12,000 to help send the teamto theworld competition. The teammates havereceived notes, cards, buttons and CDs from artists from around the country. They also received a banner wishing all the teams headed to the world championships good luck. On it was a special message to the kids: We support Panther Bots.

Hopper said that two women, one from California and another from New York,have volunteered to travel to Louisville and surprise the kids with cupcakes and ice cream.The Panther Bots has friends and fans from almost every state, shesaid.

Despite all the recognition, the students have remained humble.If you meet them, theyre really laid-back and good kids, said Owens, a mother of six boys and one girl. They dont expect to win.

Herrera, a mother of three, said the outpouring of support for her son and his teammates surprised her.Theres too many good people, she said, and they cared.

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These robotics students were told 'to go back to Mexico.' The taunt ... - Washington Post

For the first time in four years, the Kaleidoscope Discovery Center will be sending two teams to a world-level robotics competition. The Rolla Patriots and Maniacal Mechanics will be competing in St. Louis this Wednesday, and staying there until Saturday night as they put the robots theyve spent a year creating through a series of challenges in the FIRST Tech Challenge competition.

For the first time in four years, the Kaleidoscope Discovery Center will be sending two teams to a world-level robotics competition. The Rolla Patriots and Maniacal Mechanics will be competing in St. Louis this Wednesday, and staying there until Saturday night as they put the robots theyve spent a year creating through a series of challenges in the FIRST Tech Challenge competition.

According to Leigh Ann Tumbrink, the head coach of Rolla Robotics, it is extremely rare for two teams from the same school to both compete at the world competition. One team, the Rolla Patriots, climbed through the ranks in the traditional way, competing in the State and Regional levels, and coming out on top. The Maniacal Mechanics also competed in the State and Regional competitions, but advanced to the world tournament through a lottery.

The two Rolla teams will be competing against 120 different teams from around the world, and potentially against each other. The competition will take place at Union Station, and lasts from 8 a.m. on Wednesday until 8 p.m. on Saturday.

Its even more exciting because we didnt think we were able to go, said Leigh Ann, referring to the lottery drawing that allowed the Maniacal Mechanics to attend the competition along with the Rolla Patriots.

Along with their robots, these teams will bring with them their notebooks filled with the work theyve performed over the last year. From engineering notes to the marketing strategies they used to raise funds for the competition, the first round of judging touches on more than just the final product. Competitors submit any and all work ties to their project,

Its not all about Robots, said Leigh Ann, everything is taken into consideration. The students will have 15-20 to make a presentation to the judges, highlighting a years worth of work before the matches are randomly assigned.

These matches take up the bulk of the teams time, lasting from Wednesday all the way into Saturday before the closing ceremonies. Each team is paired at random with another to work together against another pair in a series of challenges. Each mach begins in an autonomous period, where the the robots move only by pre-programmed instructions, traveling around the small arena. The robots have thirty seconds to move obstacles, shoot projectiles or claim beacons. These beacons are lit up objects stationed around the square-shaped arena that can be found using color sensors on the robots, and claimed by each team by touching them.

From there the contestants are allowed to directly control their robots, completing the same challenges using wireless controllers to direct their creations. The final thirty seconds of the match, called the End Game, can move or raise additional obstacles for extra points.

After climbing to the top, the four highest ranked teams are able to pick their own partners and compete to be the winner in their division. This year there will be two divisions in the FIRST Tech Challenge, and the winners of each will face each other, granting one team the honor of being the overall winner of the competition.

This is the last year the world competition will be held in St. Louis, according to Leigh Ann, who added theyve spent the past four years fundraising just to pay the entrance and travel fees for the St. Louis location. Detroit will be hosting the world competition in the future, considerably raising travel expenses for the robotics program. Leigh Ann said they intend to go right back to fundraising when the season is over.

This year however, Leigh Ann, Kaleidoscope, and the rest of the Rolla robotics community is excited to see two local teams compete with others from all over the world, doing something they love. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 to increase students interests in science and technology. The organization sponsors the competition each year.

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Rolla Robotics sends two teams to world FIRST Tech Challenge - The Rolla Daily News

Attending the recent Automate show in Chicago was an extraordinary experience that allowed me and more than 20,000 other attendees an opportunity to peer into the future of industrial robotics. Being part of a company that is at the forefront of the industrial robotics and manufacturing automation industries still provides only one perspective, and Automate brought together leaders from all corners of the industry, such as Fanuc, ABB, Kuka, Keyence and Cognex, to showcase advances and share insights. The range of technologies on display that were designed to enhance processes, improve product quality and lower manufacturing costs was astonishing. I walked away from the show with a deeper sense of awareness of two notions: The rise of robots is upon us, and machine vision provides robots with the artificial intelligence that will forge the future of robotics in our increasingly globalized society.

The rise of robots

As many in automation are aware, robots are becoming an increasingly popular answer to completing dangerous or repetitive tasks: grinding, deburring, bin-picking, part inspections, etc. Several manufacturers and integrators assembled elaborate booths displaying various robotic capabilities, many currently in use and others as possible future applications. This alone is indicative of the rise of robots, but it is only the beginning. The leading robot manufacturers all appear to be focused on making robots simpler to program/configure and easier to integrate with technologies that create incredible functionality. The result: collaborative robots.

The show floor featured a number of collaborative robots performing a wide variety of tasks from part handling to packaging; some even bagged candy to hand out or served ice cream in a cone. Using various sensing technologies, the applications for collaborative robots to work with human counterparts are infinite. Long gone seem to be the days of robots in hard guarding and being tucked away in the corner, wrapped in ominous metal fencing. Todays robots are becoming more flexible in their range of applications, with friendlier interfaces, and free to be placed anywhere on the manufacturing floor.

Forging the future

After seeing the surprising versatility of machine vision applications on display at Automate, it became clear that machine vision is the technological advancement that will launch industrial robotics into the future. When combined with the interconnectivity of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and other smart tools such as mobile analytics, machines equipped with technologies like 3D embedded vision, multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, and deep learning will possess a primitive form of artificial intelligence that allows greater flexibility in application and the ability to actively learn processes without programming.

For example, Cognex and Keyence both have solutions that can compare eight to 10 different part characteristics in a fraction of a second. These are designed to be mounted on the end of a robot so you have a complete solution that is capable of part picking and inspection. Both of these are tasks that are often hard to fill and results can vary widely as operators tire throughout long shifts.

In another instance, Fanuc is working on developing the ability to configure a robot through learning instead of programmingspecifically the capability to give a robot a task, like picking objects out of a bin and putting them into another container. In this scenario, once the robot is configured, it will spend some amount of time figuring out how to complete the task via trial and error, and within a short time the robot will have mastered the task as well as if it had been programmed by an engineer. It seems apparent that as we continue to combine advancing vision technologies with low-cost power processing abilities, the future is endless as to what can be accomplished.

Although the next Automate isnt until April 2019, I highly recommend that you get this event on your calendar early and plan to attend. The Automate show attracts more than 20,000 visitors, all looking for new ways to enhance their manufacturing processes, lower production costs, and increase their competitive edge.

Michael Lindley is vice president of business development and marketing at Concept Systems Inc., a certified member of the Control System Integrators Association. See Concept Systems profile on the Industrial Automation Exchange.

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The Remarkable Future of Industrial Robotics - Automation World

Sonoran Science Academy Tucsons high school robotics team crushed it last weekend, taking top honors at a world competition in Houston.

CRUSH 1011, short for Creating Robots Under Severe Heat, and its partner teams from California and Washington, were named the Winning Alliance at the 2017 FIRST Robotics Championship.

Were the first team from Arizona to ever win at the championship, said Kinney Anderson, a volunteer mentor for the team. That, to me, is the really big thing.

The FIRST For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology organization encourages young people to get engaged in science and technology, and puts on competitions involving science, technology, engineering and math, including robotics.

Throughout the year, nearly 3,400 teams from around the world competing in the FIRST robotics contest received a mission to build a robot and a list of functions the robot must be able to perform.

With Perry, the robot, CRUSH won a regional competition in Denver and advanced to the next round in Houston, which was one of two FIRST world competitions. The other world competition takes place this week in St. Louis.

Before the Houston competition took place, students and mentors of CRUSH told the Star they hoped to win their division.

Now, they will face off against the winning alliance of the St. Louis contest at the end of July in New Hampshire, where FIRST is based, and compete for a final title.

Anderson said she is not sure how the battle will play out, but hopes it is an encouraging and inspiring experience for the students of CRUSH.

Im just hoping for CRUSH students to have the opportunity to make some good friends and good connections with those other teams, she said.

Palo Verde High Schools team, Optimal Robotics, also competed in Houston, though they did not place.

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Sonoran Science Academy Tucson CRUSHes its competition at ... - Arizona Daily Star

The Immokalee High School robotics team participated in the World Championship in Kentucky. Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News

Immokalee High School Robotics Team seniors Jenni Villa, left, and Kristian Trevino celebrate winning a match during the Vex Robotics Competition World Championship in Louisville, Ky. on Thursday, April 20, 2017. This is day one of three days of competition for the students.(Photo: Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News)Buy Photo

Worlds collided like slabs of metal in a robotics rink as Immokalee High School competed alongside teams from Kazakhstan to New Zealand under one roof at the 10th annual VEX Robotics World Championship.

The Kentucky Exposition Center, where matches ended Saturdayin Louisville, transformed into an Olympic Village as 1,400 teams from 30 countries and 50 states decorated their booths with cultural memorabilia.

One team from Chengdu, China, lined their table with emerald bamboo shoots, while the booth directly facing them, a team from Muskogee, Oklahoma, went with a hunting theme, covering their walls in a forest green camouflage print and rubber mallard ducks.

Afew rows over, sandwiched between teams from Urumqi, China, and Carrolton, Georgia, two teams from Immokalee hovered over their metal creations, prodding them with Allen wrenches and air compressors.

The robots under operation, named Dragonzord and Megazord, were the brainchildren of a group of seven Immokalee students and their coachFred Rimmler.

Being from Immokalee, you dont really get to meet that many different people, said Dragonzord captain Kristian Trevino, 18. To meet everybody from around the world, its amazing. I think its great.

Immokalee High School Robotics Team senior Kristian Trevino, right, introduces himself to Wen Yuyi, 17, of the Anglo-Chinese School in Singapore during the Vex Robotics Competition World Championship in Louisville, Ky. on Friday, April 21, 2017. This is day two of three days of competition for the students.(Photo: Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News)

Kristian and his teammates spent countless hours after school and on weekends since September assembling and reassembling their robots out of nut and bolts, motors, rubber bands and electrical wiring.

The teams qualified for the state championship in Tampa for the first time and arrived at the world competition as underdogs. Immokalees robotics program is only in its second year, and this was the first year the team competed outside the Collier school district.

We never thought wed make it this far in the first place, said Dragonzord mechanic Isaiah Reyna, 16.

On a 12-foot-square playing field, the bots competed to see how many toy stars and cubes each could throw over to the other side in the allotted two minutes. The robots, driven by a designated team member through a game controller, can gain bonus points for climbing onto a corner post and for driving autonomously.

Team Dragonzord enjoyed a solid run, ending with a ranking of 16 out of 94 in their division after winning seven of their 10 qualifying matches. But the results were just low enough to deter the highest-ranking teams from selecting them as allies for the division finals.

Nobody knew where Immokalee was before, but now that weve started getting our name out there, were considered as one of the best teams in Florida, Isaiah said.

From left, Immokalee High School Robotics Team senior Kristian Trevino, junior Linda Hernandez, and senior Jenni Villa take a break in between matches during the Vex Robotics Competition World Championship in Louisville, Ky. on Thursday, April 20, 2017. This is day one of three days of competition for the students.(Photo: Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News)

Megazord didnt farequite as well, winning just three of their 10 matches because of an unexplainable chronic malfunction. But the team stayed positive and were grateful for the opportunity to represent their small rural town.

Theres a lot of rumors that Immokalees a bad place. This shows that we actually do stuff here, that maybe were not just about agriculture and minorities, said Megazord mechanic George Herrera-Carrillo, 15.

Though they wont be bringing home any hardware, the teams appreciated the opportunity to work with roboticists from other countries including Canada and Singapore.

Isaiah and George enjoyed the unique experience of representing the United States in the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremonies Wednesday.

Everyone was chanting U.S.A.! U.S.A.! he said. There was a lot of excitement and adrenaline going through us.

Immokalee High School Robotics Team seniors Jenni Villa, right, and Kristian Trevino work on their robot before a match during the Vex Robotics Competition World Championship in Louisville, Ky. on Friday, April 21, 2017. This is day two of three days of competition for the students.(Photo: Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News)

Several team members used the occasion to explore their interest in Japanese culture and visited the countrys booth several times. The Japanese team offered them gifts including origami cranes and temporary tattoos with Japanese characters, and the teams added each other on Snapchat and Instagram (a sure sign of the beginning of a teenage friendship in 2017).

Theyre so sweet, said Dragonzord mechanic Jennifer Villa, 18. Its nice to have that camaraderie.

Jennifer was one of two girls on Immokalees teams and took part in the competitions first Girl Powered social, an event aimed at recognizing the intrepid women taking part in a male-dominated field.

We dont need an event to tell us we know how to do (robotics), we already know that, Jennifer said. I think it was more for the boys, to show that we deserve the same respect that guys get.

Immokalee High School Robotics Team junior Isaiah Reyna, left, and senior Kristian Trevino stand among the teams waiting to be chosen for an alliance and a chance to move on the next round during the Vex Robotics Competition World Championship in Louisville, Ky. on Saturday, April 22, 2017. This is the third and final day of competition for the students. Both Immokalee teams were eliminated before the finals.(Photo: Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News)

The students werent the only ones who enjoyed the experience. Kristians parents and three siblings drove 16 hours from Immokalee to join the festivities. His mother, Griselda Trevino, took time away from her job in a tomato packing house to watch her son compete.

The tears began to flow after she watched him annihilate his opponents in the final qualifying match.

Im really proud of my son, she said. Im so happy for him.

Kristians father, William Trevino, a surveillance specialist at the Seminole Casino, said though the family doesnt have a lot of resources, watching his son compete on a global level was too important to miss.

Immokalee High School Robotics Team senior Damian Gonzalez prepares to compete with his robot, Megazord, during the Vex Robotics Competition World Championship in Louisville, Ky. on Thursday, April 20, 2017. This is day one of three days of competition for the students.(Photo: Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News)

Its a once in a lifetime opportunity, he said. Especially for them to go from nothing to something all of a sudden, wow.

Coach Rimmler said he, too, couldnt be more proud of the teams performance.

They far exceeded my expectations in every step of the way this year, he said.

Team Megazord

Damian Gonzalez-Perez

Christopher Rios

George Herrera-Carrillo

Linda Hernandez

Team Dragonzord

Kristian Trevino

Jennifer Villa

Isaiah Reyna

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The opening ceremony for the 2017 VEX Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Kentucky featuring the Immokalee High School robotics team. Annika Hammerschlag/Naples Daily News

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Immokalee High team takes on the world in robotics event in Louisville - Naples Daily News

This is the seventh of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2017.

One wouldn't think that using engineering techniques to create a robot would inspire a student to major in business administration.

But that is what happened to Jessica Mills, an Air Academy High School senior.

This all started when she joined a robotics team in fourth grade. She recalls they made a robot that was able to pick up a tiny polar bear. "I remember it because it was cute," she says.

As the years passed, competition got more serious. This year, for the first time in 14 years, Academy School District 20's robotics team, to which she belongs, qualified for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) world championship in Houston.

She's been a Girl Scout since first grade, and she used technology to earn the Gold Award. The group's highest achievement is awarded to only about 5.4 percent of members.

She won by creating a program called STEM@LIBRARY21c. The idea for the project came when she noticed that the new tech-oriented Pikes Peak Library 21c, didn't seem to have a lot of programs to get younger children involved in STEM (science, technology engineering math).

After consulting with librarians she developed a three-day workshop to introduce youngsters to the free design software and 3-D printers at the library. She also wrote a curriculum based on the workshop and provided it locally and to 49 libraries in 18 states, and Canada.

"I was so excited when one boy told me he used the workshop skills to make a wind turbine that won a science fair."

She also finds history fascinating, and for two summers has been a teen docent at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. And she participates in Academic WorldQuest, a World Affairs Councils of America competition that tests knowledge of history, geography, culture and international affairs. Mills and her team qualified to compete nationally in Washington, D.C., this spring.

But like a lot of high school students bound for college, she says she overloaded on academic and community work last year. A friend died. As she struggled, her grades fell.

"It was a moment of clarity. I need to choose what is really meaningful to me. Slow down, know my limits. It's a lesson I will take to college."

She will major in business administration at the University of Colorado at Boulder with emphasis on marketing and entrepreneurship.

How does that major square with all that STEM and robotics involvement?

For the past two years she was elected chief executive officer for the Rocky Mountain Robotics Club, managing 134 student engineers from six area high schools. She redid the team's business plan and was part of the marketing effort to get industry sponsors.

"The business program at CU feels like home. I think I might like to start a company someday."

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Best and Brightest 2017: Student's focus goes from robotics to business - Colorado Springs Gazette

Courtesy photo Members of Carney-Nadeau Wolf Robotics are pictured along with the awards they won this year. The team will complete their first year participating in FIRST Robotics at the world championship in St. Louis, Mo. next week, where they will compete with the Gladstone and Bark River-Harris teams.

ST. LOUIS Several local robotics teams will be heading to St. Louis, Mo., for the FIRST Robotics World Championship next week. The event will run from April 26 to April 29.

One team from the Upper Peninsula that will be attending this competition is Gladstones BraveBots. By the end of last weekends FIRST Robotics Michigan State Championship, the BraveBots were one of the highest-ranked teams in the state of Michigan.

We boosted our rank to fourth in the state out of 451 teams, Lead Mentor Tim Barron said.

As a result, they will be going to the FIRST Robotics World Championship. Barron said that, while the BraveBots have gone to this event before, they are doing better than ever in 2017.

This is the highest weve ever been ranked in the state, he said.

According to Barron, it was the effort put in by the BraveBots students and mentors that made this possible.

We have a very dedicated group of kids and mentors, he said.

Wolf Robotics, Carney-Nadeaus FIRST Robotics team, will also be heading to St. Louis next week.

Its almost unexplainable, what were feeling, Co-Lead Mentor Andrea Chaney said.

One of the reasons the team is so excited about going to St. Louis is because Wolf Robotics is a newcomer to the U.P.s robotics scene 2017 was their rookie year.

Its just so unexpected, Chaney said.

Wolf Robotics was ranked at #99 in the state at the end of the FIRST Robotics Michigan State Championship; they also won the State All-Star Rookie Award, allowing them to compete on the international level. Chaney attributed the teams successful season to the hard work put in by the teams members and mentors, along with the assistance given to them by their community.

We had a lot of community support, she said.

Along with teams from Carney-Nadeau and Gladstone, Bark River-Harris I.C.E. Cubed will be attending the FIRST Robotics World Championship. Lead Mentor Mick Reynolds said the first part of the teams name is an acronym for Innovate, Collaborate, Elevate.

Thats what were hoping the kids will learn, he said.

By the end of the FIRST Robotics Michigan State Championship, I.C.E. Cubed ranked as the #36 team in the state.

Were more than qualified, Reynolds said.

This was a better outcome than the team was expecting, Reynolds said.

Our goal was to stay in the top 80 teams, he said. In contrast, I.C.E. Cubeds ranking at this point last year was in the 200s.

Reynolds noted that the students in I.C.E. Cubed are extremely excited to attend the FIRST Robotics World Championship.

The kids are absolutely stoked, he said.

Reynolds said I.C.E. Cubeds success was the result of the people involved with the team.

All the credit for that goes to our high school kids and the adult mentors that help us out, he said.

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Robotics teams off to top tourney - Escanaba Daily Press

Hyperloop One, the company trying to bring Elon Musks idea for a tube-based, high-speed transport system to fruition, has lost its chief marketing officer, Kimberly Salzer.

Salzer left Hyperloop One in mid-March after spending a year with the company, she told Recode in an interview.

The executive has now taken a job at Ozobot as its chief marketing officer. Ozobot is a robotics company that makes small robots that can help teach kids how to code. She started last week.

I voluntarily decided to leave, said Salzer, who noted the scope of Hyperloop One was moving in a different direction than her background, which is in consumer technology.

Before her time at Hyperloop, Salzer worked in the video game industry, helping to build brands for Electronic Arts and Activision.

Hyperloop One is delaying the public testing of its tube transport system and reducing the size of its test track that was supposed to host the trial run of the prototype, according to a report earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal.

Its a moonshot idea, and I really respect it, Salzer said about the Hyperloop One project.

Separately, Joby Otero, who formerly held a role as the chief creative officer at the robotics company Anki, is joining Ozobot as its chief product officer. He left Anki, another consumer-facing company that makes a small interactive robot, in January of 2016, Otero shared in an interview.

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Hyperloop One's chief marketing officer has left to join a robotics ... - Recode

Teen honors friend in robotics championship

Chris Williams, WHAS 7:36 PM. EDT April 21, 2017

Teen overcomes heartbreak, obstacles at robotics championship (Photo: WHAS11)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- An estimated 20 thousand people are in Louisville for a world championship you may have never heard of.

Students from middle school to college, 32 countries, and 46 states are competing at the Kentucky Expo Center for the VEX Robotics World Championship. Teams are paired at random and must form an alliance, then take on another alliance in a contest with robots they've built to move game pieces around the playing field.

But a one-person team with a triumph-over-tragedy story will have you rooting for the underdog.

At the VEX Robotics World Championship, you'll find a diverse field of competitors with teams from every corner of the planet. There are all girl teams, and every team's robot has a name.

However, none of the teams robots have a name quite like that of the robot from Nemesis Robotics.

Remington Haingaertner named his robot Grant White after his teammate who died in a crash in November of 2016, which also seriously injured the Haingaertner.

"I do not have a teammate. I'm on a team by myself, said 17-year-old Haingaertner. A few months ago I was in a moped accident where I lost my foot, and my teammate was killed.

At the time, this competition seemed like a longshot, but Haingaertner made quick progress, learning to use his prosthetic, and got to work on his robot.

"I lost my foot in the moped accident and broke my femur, said Haingaertner. I have a rod from my knee to my hip, which has been a struggle walking."

With the help of sponsors and his Dad, the young man, who is about to turn 18, is taking on the world alone.

His mission is filled with roadblocks most will never fully appreciate, and hes facing a fierce competition.

"To me, it's the achievements, explained Haingaertner. I would like to win? Yes. Everybody would. But at the same time, I've won with what I've done. State Champion, that's enough for me, and going through all I have is quite an accomplishment I believe."

In a contest late Friday, a stuck robot and tough opponent were too much, but in the defeat the young man from Fayetteville, Arkansas found meaning.

"It does stink to lose, yes, but you can't win unless you lose some. You have to lose. That's part of life, he said. Through loss, hes still winning.

Maybe not in the competition but overall, said Haingaertner. I believe I've won by being here.

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Teen overcomes heartbreak, obstacles at robotics championship ... - WHAS 11.com