After 12 years located at 701 Main St., East Hartford, the award-winning robotics team that brought home a National Championship in 2002 and placed third in the world in 2005 and 2007 will have to find a new home. Thanks to the generosity of Mary Lee Stiegler, the RAGE team was given a home in the back of the old A&P grocery store on Main St. in East Hartford back in 1999. This approximately 9,000-square-foot donation allowed the team to build a full-size playing field to practice on when competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition. It also allowed us to hold our regularly scheduled meetings there, teach classes in C++ and SolidWorks (CAD program), and have fun.

We were able to impact the lives of hundreds of students through the years and promote the values of gracious professionalism as they learned how to master the intricacies of robotics, team building, cooperation, and engineering. These STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields are critical components in today’s society. We wish to publicly thank Ms. Stiegler for her generosity as we search for a new home.

RAGE is a legally incorporated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math through participation in the FIRST robotics program (www.usfirst.org).

In addition to designing, building, and competing with large 130-lb., five-foot-tall robots, the RAGE team also fosters the importance of community service. Each year, the RAGE team hosts a FIRST Lego League Tournament that provides the opportunity for 24 elementary school teams to compete with their Lego Mindstorms robots. The team also sorted, boxed, and stored over 40,000 toys collected during the State Police Stuff-a-Cruiser program. These toys were then distributed to patients and families undergoing treatment at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford. We have collected toys for the KIDSAFE CT Christmas party and provided lots of baby items, blankets, and so forth for My Sisters’ Place, a shelter for women and children.

The RAGE team (http://www.ragerobotics.com) is actively seeking a new benefactor that can provide a donated home for this award-winning team. Ideally, we need space that would have several rooms that could be set up as classrooms: one for computers (6–7 workstations), one for spirit , and a larger room capable of holding 40–50 people for our team meetings. We also need a workshop space where we can use our several small tools (drill press, sander, table saw, band saw, etc ) that allow us to build our field and robot. Ideally there would be space to build a playing field (30’ × 75’) where we could practice throughout the season.

We meet typically all year round with a short break in the summer. Our meetings are traditionally on Wednesday nights at 6:30 P.M. to allow for students from all the different high schools to attend. Though based in East Hartford, RAGE currently has high school students from East Hartford, Rockville, Tolland, Bolton, Manchester, and Ellington.

Please contact the president of our Board of Directors, Maire Cusson (maire@ragerobotics.com) with any information. You may also contact team leader Chuck Nystrom (chucknye@msn.com).

Not to be outdone by the Boy Scouts who can now earn a robotics merit badge, a team of Girl Scouts from Iowa has created a prize-winning prosthetic device to help a 3-year-old girl born without fingers on her right hand.

The Flying Monkeys robotics team developed the BOB-1 tool as part of the FIRST Lego League (FLL) competition, an international kids’ robotics program.

The Monkeys are 11 to 13 years old, including one who has a limb difference that provided inspiration for the invention. The girls consulted a prosthetics maker and an occupational therapist and came up with a design that has a platform strapped to the arm as well as a cylindrical holder for writing implements or other tools.

The device helped 3-year-old Danielle hold a pencil with her right arm and write for the first time. It also netted the Flying Monkeys an FLL Global Innovation award of up to $20,000 to patent the invention, which they have applied for (PDF).

Danielle’s family has worked with the team to improve the device and would like another for a 5-year-old boy it adopted who also has a limb difference.

FLL is part of the Girl Scouts’ focus on STEM skills. The FIRST Championship, which just wrapped up in St. Louis, featured the Girl Scout GENIUS team, which installed a rear-view camera and sensor system on a wheelchair to improve visibility and navigation.

[CNET]