Youth robotics programs get a boost
Photo/Kimsrobot
Students with the Messalonskee High School robotics team, Infinite Loop, load flying discs into a robot for a game called Ultimate Ascent during a recent competition.
The Robotics Institute of Maine will be launched this Thursday amid great fanfare, with a dozen disc-tossing robots on the lawn of Fairchild Semiconductor in South Portland, along with expected appearances by Gov. Paul LePage, Segway inventor Dean Kamen and new RIM director Jamee Luce.
RIM will formalize the two sets of robotics competitions that have been running in Maine, the FIRST and VEX competitions, both for high school students. It will help manage and distribute the $100,000 in funding Fairchild has given the competitions. The robot games include teams that build robots that can hit targets with flying discs and balls and even complete mazes.
"We want to inspire kids to become engineers," Jamee Luce, new director of RIM and its only employee, told Mainebiz. She has coached robotics competitions for six years.
RIM, based at the Manufacturers Association of Maine in Westbrook, will provide resources and guidance to teams across the state that want to compete, as well as access to funding, coaching and support for competitions. A separate organization, Maine Robotics, holds similar competitions for younger students. Fairchild also will provide another $75,000 over the next two years to fund the institute, Luce says.
She says it's important for students to do more than study in a classroom, for example, to understand gear ratios and programming in a very real way by building the robots and competing against other teams.
"If you don't make it hands-on and relevant in the modern day, you don't keep kids engaged," adds Kamen, who also founded the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competitions. "We're not here to teach kids robotics, but to make them excited about technology. The robot is a common element used to make the world of engineering fun and accessible to kids."
Students work alongside engineers and other professionals while building the robots, and learn teamwork, time and project management and leadership skills, along with the more scientific aspects.
"Our education system is struggling to get kids into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields," says Luce. "This provides experiential learning. The students see what engineering and machinist jobs are like on a day-to-day basis."
RIM's goal is to double the number of students involved in robotics in the next three years to 900, and to run five new FIRST and 10 new VEX competitions each year over the next three years, Luce says. It also aims to attract more mentors and engineers, and to get more companies to invite students to visit.
The largest robotics competition in Maine so far was the FIRST competition in Lewiston in April, which attracted 38 teams from Maine, two from Pennsylvania and one from Ontario. The state has 49 competitive robotics teams, with 455 mostly high school students participating. The cost to run a team runs up to $6,000 for a FIRST team, which builds larger robots, and up to $1,500 for a VEX team.
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