Pag*
)ctober18,
JL The Battalion
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Page 3
Friday • October 1 8, 1996
Redington, TheBatmI
Neman's class from
inches to their class
ing a field triple
n.
Tim Moog, The Battalion
Emrys Landivar, an eighth-grader at Brazos Christian School, works on the "se
cret weapon" portion of his robot. The robot will be judged Saturday.
Teen-agers and Texas A&M stu
dents put down footballs and
gear up their minds in a com
petition that will test their
mental mettle.
Highs & Lows
Today's Expeciedi
78°F
Tonight's Expecidl
48°F
Saturday's
Expected Fil
79°F
Saturday Nistli
Expected II
53°F
ition courtesy of TAMS
? 3 (§!
By April Towery
The Battalion
W inning over the minds of seventh-, eighth- and ninth-
grade boys from football to math and science is not a
simple task.
Brazos Christian School teacher Kent Knudsen, along with
Texas A&M students Michael Wienen and Lee Estevez, decided
to take on this task in early September when they began “men
toring” six BCS students in their creation of a robot.
Fifteen area schools are participating in the Brazos Best ro
botics project, to be held Saturday at A&M Consolidated High
School. Thirty-seven teams from around Texas will advance to
the Texas Best competition in November.
Wienen, a mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate, said his
part in the project is guiding the students in their quest to be the
“Brazos Best.”
“First priority is to make sure they leave with the same num
ber of fingers they came in with,” he said. “[We] alert them when
they’re going down a road that will eventually lead to a dead end
and give them alternative ideas. Occasionally they override us,
and they’re right. We let the kids make all the final decisions.”
Jon Jeter, a BCS student involved in the project, said he has
learned about teamwork during the five weeks they have been
working on the robot.
“I learned that we’re never very successful working on our
own,” he said. “It’s great to see that together we can make our
ideas work. I also learned that you do use algebra in real life.”
Jeter’s classmate, Emrys Landivar, is “the rules guy” for the
group, which means he is in charge of keeping up with the pro
ject guidelines.
At the competition, the robots entered can be no larger than
eight cubic feet. Robots will be judged on a special grid, where
the students guide the robot with a remote control. Three stu
dents can enter the grid area at a time — a driver, assistant and a
loader. Then the students rotate positions so everyone can par
ticipate. There is a double-elimination process in which winners
advance and losers go to a consolation bracket.
Landivar said he is excited about the competition.
“We’re competing with A&M Consolidated, Bryan High and
Allen Academy, schools that have 25 people on their team,” Lan
divar said. “Who would imagine that this little school would go
compete — we only have one ninth-grader on our team.”
The ninth-grader, Ross Bonnes, said he has gained technical
experience from the project.
“I want to be a mechanic,” he said. “I like anything that deals
with machines.”
The students work on the project with Knudsen and the Aggie
mentors three to four days during the week after school and a
few hours on Saturday and Sunday. Knudson said that the aver
age team spends 18 to 24 hours a week working on the robot.
He also said although this is their first year to participate the
project has gone well.
“The guys are developing science and math skills in a way
that is more exciting than science fair,” Knudsen said. “It has an
element of stretching imagination and creativity. Everyone has a
different talent to bring to the group.”
Four of the six students on the BCS team are also involved in
the school’s flag football team, but Richard Harding said robot
ics has taken precedent for now.
“I’d rather do this than football,” he said. “Now we can be
known to bigger schools that we are here and we can do this. We
have our own uniqueness.”
Landivar has mixed emotions about football vs. robotics.
“If we have tackle next year, I’ll seriously have to consider
what I want to do.”
Wienen said that, by contributing to the kids as a design
team, he has learned about group dynamics.
“Every time you work with a team, you learn something,” he
said. “We’re constantly faced with new challenges just keeping
the kids focused.
“When they are faced with something difficult, their first
inclination is, ‘This is hard, let’s do something else.’ We try to
help reach their goals and stick to what they thought was im
portant initially.”
For more information about robotics, the BCS students have
put together a web page. The address is
http://www.geocities.com/timessquare/8741/robhome.html.
They said that the time they have put into the project will pay
off when they compete with the other schools.
“Time well spent is well-spent time,” Landivar said.
Jon Jeter, Michael Wienen, an A&M mechanical engineering
graduate student and Emrys Landivar work on the robot's motor.
IrJ IiShS 9
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