The 2015 FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) season has begun
and the Geneva High School Robovikes, sponsored by The Label Printers, are back
for their seventh season. Earlier this month, nearly 75,000 high-school
students on approximately 3,000 teams at 107 venues around the globe joined the
2015 Kickoff via live Comcast NBC Universal broadcast.
First explains, “At today’s Kickoff, FIRST Robotics
Competition teams were shown the RecycleRush playing field and received a Kit
of Parts made up of motors, batteries, a control system, a PC, and a mix of
automation components worth tens of thousands of dollars – and only limited
instructions. Working with adult Mentors, students have six weeks to design,
build, program, and test their robots to meet the season’s engineering
challenge. Once these young inventors build a robot, their teams will
participate in one or more of the 105 Regional and District events that measure
the effectiveness of each robot, the power of collaboration, and the
determination of students.”
That six week time frame is a significant commitment of time
and effort, which this experienced Robovikes team understands very well. Geneva High School’s team meets on Mondays
and Fridays after school for about two to three hours, and then for about nine
hours on Saturdays. And usually even
more time as the competition nears.
RecycleRush is, as First explains, “a recycling-themed game
played by two Alliances of three robots each. Robots score points by stacking
totes on scoring platforms, capping those stacks with recycling containers, and
properly disposing of pool noodles, representing litter. In keeping with the
recycling theme of the game, all game pieces used are reusable or recyclable by
teams in their home locations or by FIRST® at the end of the season.” View the
game animation and more on FIRST’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/FRCTeamsGlobal
This past Saturday found the Robovikes working on assembly
of this year’s ‘bot, exercising the “platform”, creating a new team web site,
programming, watching, talking, laughing – pretty much everything you’d expect
from a group of teenagers and their adult mentors. Now in the team’s seventh
season there are a lot of veterans around the room, but also a lot of kids who
have joined because their friends and families told them how much fun it is
and/or because of the success that the team has enjoyed since its rookie
season. And their reputation for success which comes from hard work, skill and
fun is beginning to define the program.
Mary Keyzer, a teacher at Geneva High School and the
Robovikes coach, and two other principal adult mentors have volunteered
countless hours working with the team since the beginning – Kevin Keyzer, a
ceramics engineer and Mary’s husband, and Joe Kane, who is the Director of
Research and Development at The Label Printers.
On this Saturday, at the team meeting being held at the high school,
Kevin Keyzer is joined by other mentors – his dad, John Keyzer, Tom Paskiewicz
from MayTec, one of the team’s “R2D2” level-sponsors, and team dad Jon Snurka,
whose son Brad (a senior at GHS) is in his 4th season as aRobovike.
Brad Snurka is the only 4-year team member and this year’s
team captain, and has really enjoyed being on the team, finding it a great
introduction to the STEM disciplines. He
said, “It was a good way to combine my programming hobby with building
robots. And the scholarships are really
great, too.” His job this year is to
train other team members how to write code for the robot, and generally provide
mentoring and leadership to the team. And he hopes to be the robot “driver” in
the competitions this spring. Brad’s career goal is to teach high school
physics, and he’ll be going to Northern Colorado this fall.
Alesa Laserna’s first choice for college is the Coast Guard
Academy, where she wants to major in Biology.
Alesa is both a cheerleader and a member of the Robovikes team. She joined last year to see if she liked it –
and found that she loved it. Learning
about robotics, building the bot, and the team mentors are prominent in her
reasons for being so enthused about the team. She says, “It was a way to learn something new
and have fun. I like hands-on things,
and this program really fits that.”
Brandon Elizondo is a senior and a 3rd year team
member. He’s going to the University of
Colorado at Boulder to student physics, and would like to either be a
researcher or professor. He says that
the robotics club has allowed him to meet a lot of people, and have a lot of
fun. Like Brad, he’s teaching new team
members how to program. He says, “We
have a solid design, so we should do well at Regionals.”
Tom Miller is also a senior and 3rd year team member, and is
a member of the build team. He’s looking
at a number of colleges, with Vanderbilt and Northwestern his top two
choices. Like a number of Robovikes over
the years, he enjoys the sciences, but has interests outside of the STEM
disciplines – in his case, particularly English. But what Tom likes best about the Robovikes,
“We’re all close – kind of a big family.”
