{"id":965,"date":"2017-06-01T08:40:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T16:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/?p=965"},"modified":"2021-04-05T19:02:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T03:02:24","slug":"rise-of-the-machine-upper-school-robotics-team-has-best-ever-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/01\/rise-of-the-machine-upper-school-robotics-team-has-best-ever-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Rise of the Machine: Upper school robotics team has best-ever season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-issuu wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-issuu\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Harker Magazine Summer 2017\" src=\"https:\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?u=theharkerschool&#038;d=harker_magazine_summer_2017\" style=\"border:none; width: 500px; height: 383px;\" allow=\"clipboard-write,allow-top-navigation,allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation,allow-downloads,allow-scripts,allow-same-origin,allow-popups,allow-modals,allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox,allow-forms\"  allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This article first appeared in the <a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/theharkerschool\/docs\/harker_magazine_summer_2017\">summer 2017 Harker Magazine<\/a> and was <a href=\"https:\/\/news.harker.org\/rise-of-the-machine-2017-robotics-team-results-reflect-years-of-growth\/\">reprinted in Harker News Online.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Harker\u2019s competitive robotics program was just starting\nin 2003, it needed help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFrom an engineering standpoint, the team was highly\nunpredictable and unreliable,\u201d said Eric Nelson, robotics advisor. \u201cTheir\ncreations tended not to function most of the time. Breaking down, losing parts\nand catching fire were the norm. The outcome was not surprising given that they\nresisted working as a unit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But since then, thanks to strong mentors and program\nchanges, the team has steadily matured, and 2016-17 was its best competitive\nseason yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Robotics Club was founded by a student in the 2001-02\nschool year. Nelson, also a physics teacher and chair of the upper school\u2019s\ncomputer science department, joined Harker and became club advisor in 2003-04,\nand has overseen the steady growth of the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fall 2004, team captain Alex Segal \u201905 both pulled the\ngroup together and had a clear design goal, said Nelson. While the robot that\nyear had reliability issues, it had a competitive design and the team won the\nSacramento regional competition and went on to Atlanta for the national event.\nThe team held its own until mid-afternoon on the first day of the event, then\nslid behind for the remainder of the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe team culture was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome,\u201d said Nelson. \u201cThat type of rebellious \u2018me-first\u2019 behavior is now the exception rather than the norm, and it has made a big difference in the team performance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jacqueline Rousseau \u201907 was there early in the program\u2019s\ndevelopment, too. She was on the robotics team for four years, starting in\n2003-04. After college, she spent several years as a trader in foreign exchange\noptions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York, but left recently to get\na master\u2019s in education from Harvard\u2019s Teacher Education Program and plans to\nbecome a high school physics teacher after graduating next year. She remembers\nher time on the robotics team with great fondness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy freshman year was the team\u2019s second year,\u201d Rousseau\nsaid. \u201cThe first couple of years, we were just a group of students trying to\nfigure out what we were doing, but by the time I left we had some semblance of\norganization. We definitely reinvented the wheel multiple times before we\nstarted learning how to pass on knowledge through the years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a junior, Rousseau was programming subteam lead; her\nsenior year she was vice president of the club. \u201cWhat I actually did was a bit\nof everything!\u201d she said. \u201cMy focus for the first three years was on\nelectronics (wiring the robot) and programming (writing code and testing), and\nthen, in senior year, managing all of the separate processes and organizing the\ntiming of the project so we could ship on time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Out of Chaos, Order<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the first five years, Nelson built up the program,\nrecruiting parents for supervision, mentoring and some technical oversight. \u201cI\nalso hooked a few faculty into watching the students so I could have a day off\nonce in awhile. I am still very appreciative of [lower school science teacher]\nGiresh Ghooray for his help,\u201d he said.&nbsp;\n\u201cThe one consistent aspect that I maintained was that the students had\nto do the design and engineering,\u201d said Nelson. \u201cThis restriction meant that\nthe students became very knowledgeable about the systems they developed and the\ntools they used, but those systems tended to look, and work, like they were\nmade by students. They lost a lot of games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the path to success began to open up in 2008. \u201cThe move\ninto Nichols Hall [from a regular-sized classroom] was a huge game changer,\u201d\nsaid Nelson. \u201cWe now had the space for real tools, not just hand drills and\nhacksaws, as well as room for ongoing projects. The new facilities and\npersistent structure helped a great deal in providing consistent oversight and\ncontinuity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 2012, Nelson\u2019s nine years of hard work had begun to pay\noff, but refinements were necessary to bring the program into the winner\u2019s\ncircle with consistency. \u201cWhile the team\u2019s internal performance did improve, in\nthe sense that things stopped catching fire and losing parts,\u201d said Nelson,\n\u201ctheir competition performance did not. Their robots were still designed and\nconstructed by students who only had part-time guidance for the design and\nengineering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Five years later, in 2017, the team lit up the scoreboard,\nmaking school history in March when, for the first time, it finished in the top\neight of the seeding rounds of the Central Valley Regional FIRST Robotics\nCompetition. The team ranked seventh out of 47 entries at the end of the first\nround, giving Harker the choice of alliance partners for the quarterfinals.\nDuring the quarterfinals, Harker\u2019s alliance had the highest score for the\nentire tournament, moving it on to the semifinals. \u201cAlas,\u201d said Nelson, \u201cwe\nlost our two semifinal games. It was an excellent competition where the\nstudents really lived up to their abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Later that month the team made the semifinals in the\nSacramento Regional FIRST Robotics Competition thus, for the first time, making\nthe semifinals in both regionals in which it competes. \u201cOur last two games were\ntoo close to call until the final official tally,\u201d noted Nelson. A number of\nfactors helped move the team into position for that winning season. \u201cOver the\npast five years we have formalized the team structure, created a handbook so we\ncan remember what we do that works and created a purchase tracking and approval\nsystem to keep costs under control,\u201d Nelson said. Meanwhile, the club was\nconverted to an official program, an important change to make it eligible for\nschool funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past \u2013 and this season \u2013 the team had consistent help\nabout every other week from Brian Oldziewski, Harker\u2019s network administrator,\nand parent mentors \u2013 but that wasn\u2019t quite enough. \u201cWe needed someone in the\ntrenches who could work side by side with the students to keep them from\ndiverting from good design ideas and from making bad last-minute decisions,\u201d\nsaid Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter Martin Baynes, who has worked at Harker for a few\nyears as a computer science teacher at the upper school and robotics teacher at\nthe middle school. Before taking up teaching, Baynes was a senior manager in\nelectronics and software companies in Silicon Valley for many years. \u201cI am used\nto trying to be a catalyst for creativity, and a facilitator, priority and\nmilestone clarifier,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Baynes teaches the robotics course and, Nelson noted, \u201cworks\nwith the students in the engineering trenches on a daily \u2013 or perhaps hourly is\na better word \u2013 basis during the build and competition season.\u201d These changes,\nalong with a new officer selection process, on top of the years of refining the\nprogram, all contributed to this year\u2019s stellar results. Baynes is insistent\nthe students made the difference. \u201cThe leadership by the students in all cases\nwas excellent and the most crucial factor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But one of his own contributions was key: During build\nseason Baynes brought a voice of reason to proposed changes in plans, \u201cto stop\nthe over-creative enthusiasm,\u201d he said. This focusing saved enough resources\nthat the team was able to build a second robot for software development, tuning\nand practice. Baynes brought his expertise to the competition floor, too, \u201cso I\ncould help with debrief and stop them changing the robot prematurely,\u201d he said.\n\u201cThey became a well-oiled operation team in both the pit and on the competition\nfloor; it was most impressive at UC Davis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The transition has gone well. \u201cMartin has taken over all the\nengineering oversight and lab management tasks,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cThis is the\nfirst year that I did not know what the design was until I watched the robot in\naction. It was the first year that I did not put in 60- to 80-hour weeks during\nbuild, and it was the best year in terms of both internal and external overall\nperformance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Along with supervising the build, Baynes\u2019 two new robotics\nclasses will add a fresh dimension to the robotics program as students who pass\nthrough them join the program in increasing numbers. Existing classes were\nalready helping the software subteam, said Nelson. \u201cOur computer science\ncourses give those students a strong foundation, which makes a big difference\nin their coding efforts. The electronics course in the physics subdepartment\nhelps the more electrical engineering-minded students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new courses are robotics hardware and robotics software\nclasses, one taught each semester. Both classes train students from a general\nprinciples perspective, not specifically on the competition hardware and\nsoftware. However, the hardware course does train students in 3-D CAD, which\nthe design team uses to build the robot; and the software course supports the\nsoftware aspects of the club work. In both courses this year, about 30 percent\nof the students are in the competitive program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew Tierno, grade 12, executive president of the 2016-17\nrobotics team, has been on the team four years. \u201cEver since I went to the\nHarker open house as a rising freshman, I knew I wanted to join robotics,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cA lot of what we do here at Harker is theoretical and intellectual, so\nit\u2019s nice to have a program where we\u2019re actually building things with our own\ntwo hands and learning, sometimes painfully, that not everything that should\nwork in theory does work in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a freshman, Tierno liked what he saw. \u201cI admired the\nleadership of then executive president Sarika Bajaj \u201914,\u201d he said. \u201cShe had a\nway of maintaining order and championing the opinion of the underdog, all while\nkeeping the environment fun and exciting to return to day after day. It\u2019s that\nkind of energy that inspired the style of leadership I tried to bring to my\npresidency. I\u2019m strongly of the opinion that it is the absolutely amazing bunch\nof students this year that afforded us our successes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tierno agreed the changes noted above had a serious impact\non results. One game changer was building that second robot thanks to Baynes\u2019\nefficiencies, \u201cwhich gave us the practice crucial to our successes this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tierno, who will attend Stanford in the fall, motivated some\nchanges of his own, included moving discussions onto the messaging platform\nSlack, cleaning out the robotics lab, reworking the robotics handbook and\nimplementing a new scouting system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All the changes added up to a landmark season. \u201cWe\u2019ve found\nthis special blend of strong mentors, effective organization and dedicated\nstudents that is critical for success,\u201d said Tierno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tierno noted everyone on the roster made an exceptional\neffort this year. \u201cAlbert Xu [grade 12] deserves a special shout out for taking\non the task of designing our robot and managing its construction essentially by\nhimself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChristopher Leafstrand [grade 10] was our robot driver. He\nmakes driving seem so easy, whizzing both forwards and in reverse at top speeds\nyet somehow dodging every single obstacle that comes in his way. On top of all\nthat, he\u2019s also a significant contributor to design and has already come up\nwith a model for a robot to build over the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNina Levy [grade 12] acted as our drive coach. Her quick\nthinking and ability to make snap decisions led us to victory more than once\nwhen we thought everything was lost. She has the incredible ability to make\neveryone stop and listen to her, which is critical in a game where teamwork is\nkey (finals matches are played with two other teams against another three-team\nalliance),\u201d finished Tierno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Levy was the team\u2019s 2017 director of public-facing\noperations, so she managed the drive team of five students but also helped with\nthe build. She, too, has been on the team for four years. She organized drive\nteam meetings and during the match, acted as the driver\u2019s brain, coaching him\non what to do, to get a gear (an item to be collected and re-deposited by the\nrobot), to climb or defend, and alerting him on how much time is left and how\nmany gears were in the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI have learned a multitude of engineering-related skills\nthat have prepared me for college,\u201d noted Levy, who will attend University of\nCalifornia, Davis in the fall. \u201cI think over the years the biggest changes were\nin communication. When our team communicated with each other and worked\ntogether for one common goal, we succeeded both as a team and at competition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Levy revels in the community that develops with the team.\n\u201cWithin the team, everyone, each year, always talks about the close friends\nthey have made and the people that they can trust and count on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think that robotics is a really great opportunity for any\nhigh school student interested in STEM fields,\u201d Levy added. \u201cWhether you have\nprevious knowledge about different aspects of robotics or know nothing but are\nwilling to give it a try, the experience is completely worthwhile. I would say\nHarker Robotics is not just about a club that builds robots but also a\ncommunity that fosters learning, growth, communication and respect between all\nthe team members and mentors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Great Take-Aways for All<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Baynes, like all good teachers, enjoys watching the students\ngrow, seeing what they are capable of, and seeing them rewarded for their\ndedication and hard work in the competition achievements. \u201cI believe if we had\ngone for a third competition, they could have won,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next few years should be interesting. \u201cI expect a high\nlevel of recruiting next year because of this year\u2019s success,\u201d said Baynes. \u201cI\nhope for improved productivity from lab changes and robotics courses\nreinforcement. We cannot guarantee a group of students like this year\u2019s every\nyear, but hopefully we will attract similar personalities because of the\ncompetition and because its robot is student led, student designed, student\nbuilt, student driven \u2013 unlike many other FIRST Robotics Competition teams\nwhere coaches and mentors are hands-on the robot design and build.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rousseau noted long-term benefits she gained from being on\nthe team. \u201cLearning to cooperate with a team is invaluable,\u201d she said. \u201cTrying\nto build a robot gets very messy at times, and I learned how to persevere and\ntry new approaches to problem-solving if the first few ideas don\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She learned how to tackle an open-ended project. \u201cRobotics\nwas so much more like the real world than any class I took; there was no right\nanswer, no instruction manual, and there was a hard deadline. Learning how to\nmanage the six weeks of build and end with a functional robot taught a lot of\nskills that homework problems couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the best thing Rousseau got out of the program were her\nmany good memories. \u201cDuring the build period, I would spend on average 40 hours\na week, after school and weekends, on robotics. That, plus traveling to\ncompetitions, meant that most of my extracurricular life revolved around the\nteam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rousseau absolutely encourages girls to join the team; this\nseason, 11 of the 40 members are female. \u201cThe more diverse perspectives the\nteam has, the better the outcome will be,\u201d she said. \u201cRobotics teaches everyone\nhow to be confident in their skills and how to communicate their ideas to the rest\nof the team, which can be particularly beneficial to women going into male\ndominated STEM fields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rousseau noted that her decision to become a high school\nphysics teacher had everything to do with her time at Harker. \u201cI was fortunate\nenough to have two amazing physics teachers at Harker, Ms. [Lisa] Radice and\nDr. Nelson, who inspired me to major in physics at Caltech. They are definitely\nin my mind as examples of the type of teacher I hope I\u2019ll be able to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following a stellar season, Tierno reflected on his time in\nthe robotics program. \u201cI screamed so loud at our competitions that my voice\nwent hoarse,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had the right students, the right mentors, and the\nright organizational structure to create this perfect storm that led us to our\nsuccesses. I\u2019ve just been filled with an overwhelming pride for this team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine and was reprinted in Harker News Online. When Harker\u2019s competitive robotics program was just starting in 2003, it needed help. \u201cFrom an engineering standpoint, the team was highly unpredictable and unreliable,\u201d said Eric Nelson, robotics [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[193],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-and-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1025,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions\/1025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}