Engineering a Golden Future

When one thinks of robots, the visions of Robbie the Robot from Lost in Space comes to mind. And while this novel concept is great for entertainment, it is not in the realm of reality….yet. Or are they? While there are professional engineers and scientist who are working on the current generation of robots, the future lies in the hands of young engineers who are in our high schools today.

Miranda Ng is one of those prospective engineers on the future. As a sophomore at Liberty Charter High School {LCHS), her Girl Scout Gold Award Project was to bring robotics to her school, by starting a Robotics Club. Miranda’s goal was to form a team that would ultimately compete with the For Inspiration of Science and Technology (FIRST) organization in the regional FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). FIRST was formed by Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) in the schools. Every year, FIRST creates opportunities for FRC teams to compete in regional competitions worldwide that are based on unique technical challenges.
Miranda’s Robotics Club has been in existence at LCHS for three years, recently competing in their third San Diego Regional Competition. To promote her club, Miranda works with David Youngblood, the Liberty Charter High School Physics Teacher, to partner with the La Mesa community at large. To expand participation, Miranda enlisted additional students from Grossmont High School and Granite Hills High School to form Team Leodroid. Supporting the club is a group of mentors who provides guidance to the students.
In preparation for the competition, the Robotic Club meets regularly to learn about programming, mechanical theory, and project management. Team skills development is focused on creative thinking, critical thinking, communications, leadership, teamwork, logistics, game strategy, requirements analysis, and functional decomposition. Competition season is a seven week build period where Team Leodroid works feverishly to analyze, design, engineer, and build a competition capable robot. Finally competition consists of a field of sixty teams over a three day period, where rounds of competition are spaced between NASCAR-like pit-stops during which students have to analyze problems and prepare their robot for the next round.
Throughout this process, the students are learning sound engineering principles and working towards being the engineers, scientists, and project managers of the future. Miranda Ng will be graduating this summer from LCHS and is heading for California Polytechnic Pomona. Team Leodroid will continue to move forward at LCHS. If you are interesting in supporting this team, please contact Liberty Charter High School at libertychs.org.