Watch Live! Astronaut Kate Rubins And Jeff Williams Spacewalk Around The International Space Station!
Watch live! Astronaut Kate Rubins and Jeff Williams spacewalk around the International Space Station! They are retracting a thermal radiator which is part of the space station cooling system. Thought this picture was neat because you could see one of their reflections in a device. http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv
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Robotics Molds Students Into Professional Triple Threats
It’s no shock that FIRST Robotics promotes science, technology, engineering, and math. FIRST’s message of STEM education is smeared all over its challenges, image, and very name “FIRST”- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. What FIRST robotics didn't expect to do is create a new breed of professional triple threats. FIRST has molded a generation of confident communicators, tenacious culture changers and gracious leaders.
Communication A stereotype for anyone in STEM industry is that you are socially impaired and enjoy being locked in a dark room with your work. Out in industry, why would the media want to speak with an engineer when there is a whole marketing department dedicated to doing just that? Especially when the marketing knows to NOT speak techy geek lingo that makes anyone want to forget every ounce of high school algebra they remember. This communication challenge is constantly navigated on a FIRST Robotics team. There is a different set of dialog for the media, fans, fellow teammates, and supporters. A phrase like “the new FRC roboRIO has integrated PWM, servo, and analog I/O channels capabilities” could be useless to you unless you were on a team while “this year’s robot controller allows us to add more sensors on our robot” is more meaningful. Students learn how to identify who their audience is and communicate accordingly. Teams often present to companies, schools, communities, some tech literate, and some not. Tech industry will soon be welcoming individuals in STEM that can communicate to a wide audience and not just among themselves.
Culture Hot topics like celebrity gossip may catch your attention but for most not this week’s newest innovations. Why? Culture. For what I like to call the engineering golden years, 50s and 60s, engineers were celebrated as superstars. The media and government were behind their innovative visions, currently that support is there but not as visible. Its obvious that students in FIRST try to change culture by showing that STEM is cool, but they also change culture in a more powerful and subtle way. Students engage in a unique form of cooperation scarcely observed in industry. Yes, during build season students keep their team's design hush hush, but when a rival asks for help they rise to the occasion and assist. You don't see Microsoft asking Apple for help with font design or firmware advice. Students recognize that the success of all teams is more important for the success of their own. Once these individuals enter into industry their mindset of advancing humanity rather than stock competition will allow innovation to occur faster.
Leadership The word leadership often evokes an image of a CEO, suits shaking hands, and a cheesy stock image pasted on a motivational presentation. Although being an executive leader is a lot of people’s goals there are just not many of those positions open. Getting to that level of management maybe involve some ungracious acts, climbing the ladder while stepping on a few people's toes. FIRST robotics has shaped a more realistic image of leadership in the mind of this generation. These students understand leadership doesn't just come in the form of leading others but also the leading of self. Autonomously identifying when you have nothing to do, thinking of a way to drive a goal forward by contributing, and completing that task sounds like a relic of a time gone by. For individuals on FIRST robotics this self-motivation is the key to their team’s success. Students learn that their team's goal would not be reached without their daily drive.
Disguised by the whirring motors and blinking lights a new generation is being fashioned. These professional triple threats graciously reform communication, culture, and leadership. At competition, beyond the field and into the robot pits is the best place to watch this transformation take place. Not convinced? Grab a pair of safety goggles, shake a few hands with students, collect a few robot buttons, ask about their robot design, hear about their aspirations, and see for yourself.
Find your nearest FRC competition: http://www.usfirst.org/whats-going-on
Make the Most of a Summer Internship Establishing good habits, setting goals and doing research - I share internship tips in U of Minnesota Duluth's career blog: https://umdcareers.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/make-the-most-out-of-your-summer-career-experience/
One Robot Six Weeks
Fueled by pizza and Mountain Dew over 78,000 high school students will be participating in FIRST Robotics teams to build a 120lb competitive robot in just six weeks. This Saturday January 9th 9amCT FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition for Science and Technology) will reveal a new game the robots will compete in. You can watch this season's Kick Off live stream HERE.
Basketball, soccer and frisbee playing robots have been built in the past. A video showcasing a new theme "FIRST Stronghold" gives hints to a Mideavel inspired games. Watch FIRST Stronghold here. Hidden in the video is a layout of a competition field convincingly drawn with symmetrical sides. Bloggers from Chief Delphi, a popular robotics discussion board, took screenshots of the blueprint and even corrected its perspective. Chief Delphi members are convinced the video allures to a capture the flag, jousting or player VS field game. Echoes of Nickelodeon Guts and Legends of the Hidden Temple 90s game shows resonate with me as I imagine robotics quickly scaling Aggro Crag and manipulating artifacts. Sprinkled the throughout the forum are hopes for water game with submerged obstacles - a long running hope and joke of robotics students. Friday January 8th 6pmCT a broadcast from a FIRST Founders evening (WATCH HERE) will be diving into the details of the FIRST Stronghold theme.
Game challenge aside I am concerned about how high school students and the general audience will view the Stronghold theme. Stronghold may create a stigma with its LARPing (Live Action Roll Play) undertones alienating students from STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) rather than inviting them in. As the 2016 FIRST Robotics season plays out we will see how Stronghold is welcomed.
With or without fancy capes and flags what these high school students are accomplishing is exrtraodinary. Designing, building, wiring, marketing, and programming these robots take industry level skills that would knock any future employer's socks off. Get behind these FIRST Robotics teams by donating or mentoring to get behind future STEM leaders.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Find a local team to help: http://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search
Mentor a team: http://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/volunteer/first-mentorcoachflyers-ftc-frc.pdf
Watch the Kick Off 1/9/16 9amCT: http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/2016-first-robotics-competition-kickoff
Watch Stronghold clues 1/8/16 6pmCT: http://streamingmeeting.com/webcast/2016_first_founders/
Check out my past robotics team: http://www.daredevils2512.org/
Tech Opportunities: Grace Hopper Day 2
An overwhelming aspect of the Grace Hopper Conference is the career fair and hosted lunches. During which you get to exposed to many career, learning and conference opportunities. I couldn't possibly take advantage of all these opportunities so I will share them with you.
Hour of Code: Everyone
Learn a bit of programming for an hour or longer if you like! Simply projects to get you jump started with programming.
Bank of America Internships: Current Students
Hiring and looking for interns in cyber security, user interface design, software, IT and more.
NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Community: Women in College
Attend conferences, access to exclusive scholarships, exposure to internship opportunities, join a support group of over 2500 like minded women who share a similar passion for computing. A support network where you can connect with others 24/7. There is always someone posting or responding on the Facebook page!
Google & Microsoft Internships: Everyone
At the Grace Hopper Conference Google & Microsoft heavily stressed that they are hiring and recruiting more interns and full time hires. They both offer parental leave meaning both parents get paid leave for many weeks for a child!
Best Buy: Everyone
During the career fair Best Buy was hosting a coding challenge which caught my attention. They displayed medium level code in various languages and you had to determine what it outputs. After completign the challenge they described various engineering, analyst and IT.
Code Camp | Square: College & High School Women
Five day to week long tech immersive camp where you code, practice leadership and complete group engineering projects.
NASA Co-Op and Internship: Current Students
Of course I am going to list NASA opportunities I Co-Op at NASA! Everybody in every discipline can contribute to NASA's mission and humanities goals to advance space exploration. There are current education, fashion design, art, engineering, computer science, and biology majors and more!
These are the first nine opportunities that popped into my head and I will share more as the conference progresses.
NASA Meets Super Bowl LI
Super Bowl has taken over Houston and NASA! VIPs have been touring all week with cameras flashing and film rolling. Despite the excitement work at Johnson continues uninterrupted. During work hours we are the entertainment viewed by the VIPs as we test, train and support space missions. In fact, today I conducted user testing in the Space Vehicle Mock Up Facility, a facility that feels like a fish bowl as tour goers check out Space Station and Orion training mock-ups. Heads down and clip boards out we user tested a device for on board International Space Station. However, last week NASA put together an opportunity to meet retired NFL players during lunch to get our Super Bowl fill before the big week.
NASA has a huge presence at Super Bowl events and is expected to be featured during on the big screen during pre-game shows and game. There has been film crews running around Johnson and other related centers, I will be watching for some NASA love on TV Sunday! Here is a TV Guide of when coverage will start for those who don't get a newspaper: http://www.tvguide.com/listings/ The Fox Super Bowl Kick Off starts at 12:00pmCT Noon and the game starts at 5:30pmCT. Already NASA has taken over downtown Houston with the Orion Capsule, space booths and a giant drop tower that virtually send you to Mars and back. NASA has also made a number of Super Bowl related videos and social media posts found below...
NASA Referees Test of Footballs vs. Webb Telescope ^
Referee Robonaut: Robot Preforms Football Signals^
NASA Team! Where innovation meets sports.^
Journalists and bloggers attend NASA Social to ask astronauts about SuperBowl related questions. ^
Yahoo's Tony Sirusa rides in the Modular Robotic Vehicle^
Enjoy the game Sunday!
Throwback to when I captained a FIRST Robotics team and a really fun interview about my NASA Co-Op experience:
http://www.fox21online.com/news/local-news/UMD-Student-Reaches-For-The-Stars-With-NASA/42581116
Robots Storm the Castle
After a year of watching robots playing forklift simulator in the FIRST Robotics 2015 game Recycle Rush FIRST has raised the bar with their new game Stronghold. Alliances will work to take over the opposing team’s castle with Medieval flair. Robots must break through opposing alliance’s defenses, launch boulders to weaken the castle, and climb its walls to claim it as there own. A unique aspect of this game is the modularity of the defenses. Outer barriers that the robots will be navigating through can be swapped between matches with the choice of a portcullis (gateway to be lifted up), Cheval de Frise (teeter totter), moat, rampart (opposing steel ramps), drawbridge, Sally Port, rock wall, rough terrain, low bar and platforms. Five of these defenses assigned with obscure french names will be picked before each match. For the first time in FIRST Robotics history there will be audience participation enabling spectators to choose one of the defenses. There are 10,000 different field combinations!
Creativity of Stronghold was manifested from FIRST’s new partnership with Disney Imagineers. They collaborated to carry the season’s Medieval theme through the game’s decorative field pieces and motivating the teams to create a standard, a sort of battle flag. Ample Monty Python and the Holy Grail references were scattered though out the Kick Off broadcast from FIRST Headquarters. I am suspicious that the Stronghold theme was solely conceived for that reason. The trailer like game hint was created to capture interest of folks outside of the FIRST world instead of “in joke” game hints like this. It seems FIRST will continue to release game hints with this a mobile game aesthetic style in future years revealing the years’ theme.
Already most teams have brainstormed a design and a strategy. A group called Ri3D (Robot in Three Days) has already built a fully functional robot. This robot can complete in every aspect of the game proving from my perspective to be worthy of a regional competition win. The idea of building a competitive robot in three days must give rookies teams hope. Check out Ri3D’s final product: https://youtu.be/Kd1FaSNoDiM
This season my hands are off the robot and on the computer as a project mentor helping students write newspaper articles covering the build season and competition. Check out earlier publications by our group BlueDevil Press and online here.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
If you are a strategy engineering feel you may enjoy reading the Stronghold game manual:
https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2016manuals/GameManual/2016GameManual-Full-20160112.pdf
Mentor a team or volunteer at a regional event: http://www.firstinspires.org/ways-to-help/volunteer
Find a local robotics team to donate to. Often local teams will have their own website with instructions on how to donate/ where to send a check to: http://www.firstinspires.org/find-local-support
Check out my old robotics team the Duluth East Daredevils: http://www.daredevils2512.org/
Day in the life of an engineering major: Notes so long you have to take a picture of the white board. Senior who has this life thing figured out 3D printing a robotic arm built with video game controller parts. TA makes fun of us for being lazy and taking pictures of the chalk board - revolt by taking selfies with the chalk board. Full wave bridge rectifier decided to cooperate with the breadboard today producing a clean image on the oscilloscope. Instead of causing stack overflows stability of a system can be diagnosed when looking at a block diagram. Professor judges the mess of clamps connected to super ground. Realizing you actually need to be employed after college, cleaning up and attending a job fair. Realizing everyone is having a post college employment crisis, talking to as many recruiters as possible while snagging free company swag.
