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]

Working together with Vulcan Robotics from Philadelphia and the Robo Doves from Baltimore, the alliance won its way through the quarterfinals and semifinals to make it into the final round. Though they lost the best-of-three final, the alliance was a force to be reckoned with. Fifty teams hailing from New Hampshire down through North Carolina participated in the event.

Beside the Chesapeake Regional, RAGE will be competing in the Northeast Utilities Connecticut Regional being held April 1–3 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford.

This year’s robot was prototyped, designed, and built by the students working side-by-side with seasoned engineers. The mechanical details were developed with the aid of a professional CAD system and fabricated by local machine shops who donated both time and materials to the team. The control software was also done completely by student programmers who were responsible for all of the robot’s motion and behavior.

Students designed shirts, buttons, backpacks, signs, and other spirit items for use by the team to cheer on the drive team and to pass out to other teams during competitions. The team’s bulldog mascot can also be seen raising a ruckus from the sidelines.

Funding for the team’s activities comes completely from corporate sponsorships and team-based fundraising efforts. Major sponsors include United Technologies Research Center (UTRC), CNC Software, Nerac, JP Fabrication & Repair, and Trumpf.

Here are a few things our team learned from the day:

• Make sure the pneumatics are fully charged before putting the robot out on the field.
• You can’t driver over the bumps with the kicker deployed.
• Make sure you tighten all the bumpers so you don’t kick one of them off onto the ground during autonomous mode.
• A roller meant to control the ball will suck the ball under the robot when the roller is built too high off the ground.
• It’s very possible to score goals during autonomous mode, even with minimal programming and from the far zone.
• The Field Management System (FMS) is capable of locking you out of your own driver station if it thinks you’re supposed to be on the field competing.
• Carabiners on the four corners do indeed make it easier to pick up the robot.

The winning alliance was unstoppable to the end, and was made up of Team 3125, Pirates of the Pythagorean from Hartford; Team 177, Bobcat Robotics from South Windsor; and Team 178, 2nd Law Enforcers from Farmington. Great job everyone.

Come meet Agawam High School’s Rosie Robotics team and see this year’s challenge. The cost for the all you can eat buffet is $8 per person and includes pasta, meatballs, salad, bread, dessert, juice, coffee, and tea.

Friday, February 5, 2010
4 pm – 7:30 pm
American Legion Post 185, 478 Springfield St, Feeding Hills, MA