Robots Challenge Students to Think Beyond Automatic Assumptions

On a crisp morning this past October when most local teens slept late, a small select group of motivated high schoolers gathered round a robot they had built out of a box of scrap parts.

Working as a close-knit team, they applied newly learned problem-solving skills in an effort to get MYRON, their robot, to successfully navigate an obstacle course. Everything had tested out fine until MYRON got stuck trying to pass over a mid-course speed bump.

The group immediately went into a huddle, analyzed the situation, and put their newly learned technical skills to work:

"We've got to raise the axle height," suggested one student.

"We'll need longer bolts," said another.

"There weren't any longer bolts in the kit."

"We can countersink the nuts back at school."

And sure enough, in a few minutes MYRON's newest obstacle was cleared after some adjustments and plans were made to alter the drive mechanism back at school. There was no time to waste.  They only had 15 minutes left in their half-hour practice session, and they needed to test and scrutinize the retrieval device.

The team functioned well, making minor on-site adjustments with ease. But those few moments represented a lot:  Five weeks of work by an eclectic group of individual students, brought together by this project and now functioning as one unit, thinking as a group to solve problems.

MYRON was the robotic brain-child of a 20-student team from Lakota West High School. After this trial run they had one week to iron out the kinks before they faced off against similar teams from Hughes, Roger Bacon, Ursuline and Mt Healthy high schools as past of the nationwide BEST competition (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology). The top two teams would go on to compete in a regional event in Alabama.

The University of Cincinnati's College of Engineering and College of Applied Science joined together as a BEST "hub" to host and oversee the local competition. In September participating teams were given a set of rules and a large box of assorted pieces to build a remote-controlled robot capable of picking up and transferring balloons from one place to another while navigating a specific obstacle course. It was a challenging task, and they only had 35 days to complete it.

Teams received guidance and encouragement from industry and academic mentors, but the students were the primary decision makers and builders. Linda Noble was faculty coach of the Lakota West team. She said her team members each spent an average of 15 hours per week working on MYRON, some during study halls but most after school.

According to Noble, the Lakota students began by discussing what they wanted the robot to do.  Plans evolved from there.  By the end of the project, students got first hand experience with various engineering concepts, but according to Noble they learned a lot more. "They learned about patience and how to compromise," she said. "Collaborative problem solving showed them how much they can learn from each other.”

The teams experienced enormous personal growth in a short period of time. "The dynamics of the group really changed," said Noble.

The group's transformation could be seen in their interaction as they toiled through the practice day. When MYRON failed to navigate the speed bump, the group, not just a few individuals, sprang into action to find and implement a solution.  "That was not the group I started with," said Noble. "Five weeks ago they would have been shouting and accusing one another."

On November 1, teams came together for the BEST Game Day competitions at UC. Judges rated teams in four categories: robotics competition, oral presentations, robot design, and t-shirt design.

The atmosphere was more charged than a homecoming sporting event.  Teams were dressed in themed costumes complete with war paint and specially designed t-shirts. Mt. Healthy's robot had an assigned pit crew; their name tags read "Chain Saw Chin" and "Measuring Tape Meg." The Hughes Center team marched onto campus supported by the school's marching band, which included an 18-piece percussion section, a 19-member choreographed precision dance team, flag twirlers, cheer leaders and three majorettes.

Although the Hughes robot stalled on the starting block in competition, their faculty advisor Kathy Wright was proud of her team's efforts. Despite the locomotion problem, Wright said her team was in good spirits. "They've never done anything like this before," she said. "We decided to learn all we could and get points in as many different areas as possible. They did really well in their presentation."

Roger Bacon and Lakota West finished on top in the local robotics competition and went on to compete at the regional BEST event in Auburn, Alabama, where Lakota West was awarded second place in the Most Photogenic Machine category and third place for Best Web Page Design.