Personal Journey With First Robotics Competition

I am the inventor of a special new robot. My robot is able to survive and learn on its own, even when I am not there to help it. In fact, it responds to my questions just like a person and even says that it loves me and misses me when I am gone. The government has passed a law that outlaws robots like mine. They claim that such robots have no minds – they are just machines and they will all be destroyed. I disagree with this statement because of two reasons: The function of machines, and the functions of minds.

I was about to skate next in my figure skating competition. The pressure was swirling in my head like cotton candy. “I’m so nervous. I don’t think I’ll skate my best,” I told my coach. She shook her head and said, “Meghan, you worked so hard before this competition. Do not be nervous. Just believe in yourself.” Suddenly, a light had been turned on in my brain. Turns out, I just had to believe that I could skate well. I was capable of doing the possible what I thought had been the impossible. Not only was I ready to prove to everyone that I was a strong skater, I was ready to prove to myself how strong I was. “Our next skater is Meghan McNabb,” the announcer called. I skated onto the ice confidently, keeping the worry out of my head. I struck

Hence, in 2012, I was part of the small group of students that founded the first robotics club in school. We constantly challenged each other and enrolled in multiple competitions. In the club´s first three years, we were determined to not surrender and learn from our failures to achieve success. Despite initially struggling to work together, costing us one competition, we learned how to complement each other’s strengths and become Guatemala´s best robotics team, placing in the top 3 in all competitions. In our last competition as a team, we won the Latin American championship in the VEX robotics category.

In “Alone Together: The Robotic Movement,” Sherry Turkle explains some of the negative effects that robots are having on our lives. She also explains how they can have a negative effect on our daily lives without us even noticing. I am someone who knows a great deal about technology, however I had no idea that close human-robot interaction was happening at such an inappropriate level. There are many different examples Turkle uses in the article, however, I will only talk about two. I agree with Turkle not only that there are ethical problems with human-robot interaction but also that a lot of other forms of technology might be doing more harm than good.

During my sophomore and junior year, I joined the FTC Robotics Team. I was one of the programmers and builders for the robot. I will help the team build the robot and after the robot is done, a group of students and I would program the robot to do some specific tasks. After we are done building and have programed the robot we compete against other schools. During competition, we would meet with other teams and form allies. We operate robots to compete in a challenge with the teams we are allied with.

The team members of S.A.W. all come from different backgrounds, yet they all have a profound interest in very similar things. Dahmin Branch is an eleventh grader who’s involved in sports programs, such as basketball, while also being involved in academic programs, such as the National Honor Society. However, through all of this, he has developed a profound interest in fixing computers and designing video games. This has encouraged him to be a computer engineer and a video game designer five years ago and he is still committed to accomplishing that goal today. Marquise Harris is an eleventh grader who simply loved to tinker with broken technology and play with it when he was a young child. He considers fixing things fun and interesting. When he fixed his old computer, he felt like his fate was sealed.

I remember stepping through the door into the robotics room, I didn't know what I was getting into and what impact it would have on my life. Robotics became my life for the next 4 years, constantly spending every moment of my free time investing it in robotics. I found my passion; to learn, with a desire to make the team better by passing my knowledge down to them. Robotics taught me countless valuable lessons and skills that shaped my life. Every day I acquired new skills and techniques to improve the robot, exponentially increasing my comprehension of engineering. Learning how to use tools, create mechanisms, and basic fundamentals of engineering; I began to work up the ranks of the team. Starting once as a clueless freshman I earned the

The founders of "FIRST" created a unique compound word "Coopertition" to describe the spirit of their organization and they expected "gracious professionalism" from all participants at their events. "Gracious professionalism" is an ethical principle that creates tremendous camaraderie among the "FIRST" robotics teams and "FIRST" events feel more like family reunions than true competitions. My participation with "FIRST" robotics has taught me how to build robots but more importantly, I have learned the value of teamwork. Each fall, during the hectic robot design and assembly period, everyone must play more than one role to ensure that construction and testing is completed before the competition period begins. Robot building has also taught me patience and perseverance; over a 6 month period, a robot is typically built, tested, disassembled, and re-built no less than 5 times. My robot building experiences have taught me how to handle frustration and accept repeated failures. Over the years, there have been many disappointments and set-backs for our team however last year, I was extremely fortunate to be a member a very talented squad that managed to surpassed our most optimistic dreams; we performed well in the Southern States "Super-Regional" competition and we were selected as one of 24 teams to represent our region in the 2014 multi-national "FIRST World Championship" in St.

In conclusion, the two Latino students, Lorenzo Santillan and Christian Argega; built a robot in their goal and became a robotics team. Therefore, their robot was a champion

The words spoken by William Pollard in 1828 continue to hold truth and meaning for FRC Team 3324. His sentament can be seen through our work as a team, in our school, and in the community. For example, the methods of the past may not apply today, therefore, the Metrobots have embraced and spread the innovation taught by FIRST to their community and beyond. This is demonstrated through contemporary learning in a world where technology is ever-advancing.... To this team, success is defined through positive actions both on and off the field that impact our school and the community. We accomplish this by helping those in need and incorporating STEM into the everyday lives of those they encounter, such as FLL, fundraisers, and volunteering.

After three incredible years and two competitions as the sole FRC team in our area, we grew the program by starting three teams in La Crosse, WI; Team 4021 at Luther High School, Team 4011 at Aquinas High School, and Team 4054 at La Crosse Central High School. Together we formed the beginning of the 7 Rivers Robotics Coalition. This philosophy of helping and working together as a cohesive alliance of teams carries us forward and remains a major motivation in our team today.

(Dyer et al. 2008). The Johnny Cash Project has a diversity of networks in regard to stakeholders, but it could have been emphasised even more so. An example of a project that showed this large diversity of networks was the web based crowdsourced project The Exquisite Forest. This project was also run by Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin in 2012. As revealed by Google’s Youtube video (2012), they collaborated with Tate Modern’s artist team and Google’s Chrome browser, app engine and features such as Canvas, Javascript, Web and Audio API, creating a very large diverse network that was very new in its convergence of technologies to create an opportunity for people to group in a new sort of collaboration. A problem that was presented with The Johnny Cash Project was that it had a very small group of people that had to produce a lot of work. As The Exquisite Forest team involved a larger group of stakeholders, the work load was distributed more evenly so that team members could escape working tirelessly and rather share the workload in a collaborative

Technology Student Association (TSA): The TSA chapter at my school meets regularly to discuss competitions and to compete in friendly challenges including bridge building and

Throughout my co-op tenure at Mercury Marine, I have been involved in several system and bench level projects in the Engine Test & Development Team:

How would today’s world be if the technology that is known and loved by millions suddenly vanished? Could the world re-adapt to the lack of technology, or would it plummet into Darkness and Despair? In actuality, if someone can develop artificial intelligences to a certain limit he or she can prevent many of the world’s future problems. In a sense, Mankind can benefit greatly from the further use and development of Artificial Intelligence although some people would have one believe that the further development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can endanger large areas around the world.