![]() Visit for more information.Most of the water on earth (96.5%, in fact!) is saltwater, but so many plants and animals – including you and me – rely on freshwater for survival. Activities will include circuit making, creating bookmarks with LEDs (light–emitting diodes) and more. The Chesapeake High School robotics team will present the robot it took to the national championship in St. On Thursday, October 22, the Pasadena robotics teams will be on-hand for activities and demonstrations at the Mountain Road Library’s family STEM night, beginning at 7:00pm. “There are many times the best scoring robot is not crowned the grand champion.” “Teamwork, exhibiting gracious professionalism and showing good engineering practices are all important,” McGovern said. In addition to hands-on STEM exposure, core values are important in robotics contests. “At the end of the match, the robots will attempt to climb a pretty steep ramp and actually pull themselves up,” McGovern added. Using the robot, the team will try to collect as many balls and cubes as possible and place them in team buckets. “After the 30 seconds are over, the robot is then controlled by remote control using standard video gamepad controllers.” “There is a 30-second autonomous portion where the robot will try to navigate across the field and accomplish various tasks,” McGovern said. Each group works to get as many points as possible and the alliance with the most points wins. The FTC competition involves four teams that will break into two alliances. “The robot needs to be fast and quick but also needs to be able to climb a pretty steep and slick ramp.” “The team is trying to figure out how best to design the wheels or tank treads of the robot,” McGovern said. The robot will use multiple DC and servo motors to complete tasks. “The team will have to program using Java and Android Studio - the same tools used to build smartphones.” “The computer behind the robot is two Android smartphones,” McGovern explained. It’s all about the robot.” The robot is much more advanced than its FLL Lego counterpart. “The FTC competition is a little different,” McGovern noted. ![]() Members are in grades six through nine, and they participate in First Tech Challenge (FTC) competitions. “The team will work on designing tools to complete these missions … items like a forklift, a claw, hoists, or even a catapult,” McGovern added.ĭark Matters team members are Tommy McGovern, Caleb Shakan, Hayden Stoll, Dylan Janick, Jackie Weidner and Maeya Tremble. The robot has two and a half minutes to do so. “For the robotic competition, the team has to build a robot to autonomously complete several missions on a 4-by-8-foot field,” McGovern said. Numerous bags of trash were collected from the site. ![]() The girls “researched” trash by participating in the Ocean Conservancy cleanup at Weinberg Park in Pasadena during September. “They are researching the life cycle of microbeads, alternatives to them, and will be working on ways to improve effects on their environment.” “ focusing on microbeads,” McGovern explained. This year’s problem is the environment, and the girls’ theme is “Trash Trek.” They must also use Legos to build a robot that will complete a specific mission for points. They are tasked with creating a solution for a real-world problem. Members Megan McGovern, Kendall Bobick, Melissa Turek, Evelyn Davenport, Emily Sturgill, Grace Hall, Skylar Deters, Maeya Tremble, Nia Quinn and Anastacia Quinn are in grades five through seven. The girls’ group is a First Lego League (FLL) team. After we do all that, then we start brainstorming designs and prototyping systems.” “There are some tasks that are very hard, and we may just say, ‘It’s not worth the time to try and do that.’ Others are easy to do, and we want to get those solved quickly. Understanding all the details is very important.” “The first thing we do is study the rules of the game. “There is a lot of preparation for the robot building,” said McGovern, who is in his third year of teaching robotics. He estimated that they spend about 100 hours working on their projects up until the competition date. The teams meet in McGovern’s garage every week. The dads are leading two units - a girl’s group known as Girls Generation and Dark Matters, a team with mostly male members. Barry McGovern is coaching the teams with the help of Ken Baker, a fifth-grade teacher at Bodkin, and Joe Tremble. Students from Bodkin Elementary and Chesapeake Bay Middle are gearing up for robotics competitions that will be held in December or January.
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