Cadalyst - July 2008 - (Page 14)

techtrends By Kenneth Wong FIRST Robotic Beasts Draw Students to Engineering Annual competition inspires young men and women to pursue interest in science and technology. or two entire matches, ThunderChickens, Team 217 (Michigan), and its robotic mascot sat like a lame duck. Grant Cox, the team’s designated robot driver, frantically pushed the steering stick in various directions, hoping to accomplish with brute force what the infrared signals had failed to do. But the bird wouldn’t budge. Just before they sent their robot Ritchie X into battle, engineers from Team 234 (Indiana) discovered that Ritchie’s launching arms were unnecessary. In fact, without the dead weight, Ritchie’s maneuvers would be faster. So they prepared to amputate them on the spot. Norwell High School students from Team 348 (Massachusetts) realized that their mechanical menace, Killer Kowalski, would come crashing into the overpass when it traversed the course with the trackball in its arm. So they too decided to rearrange some of Kowalski’s limbs before they let it loose. These experiences are common for the teams battling one another at various levels of the annual FIRST Robotics Competition, which was held at the Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta this April. The unpredictable behaviors of the machines and the need to troubleshoot on the spot are an essential part of the event. Founded in 1989 by Segway inventor Dean Kamen, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) has the goal of inspiring young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. F Figure 1. Team 234’s Ritchie X, designed in Autodesk Inventor, used a telescope-like tower structure to raise and lower its grabbing arms. Proﬁles of Robotic Giants ThunderChickens (Team 217) Robot name: ThunderChickens Software used: SolidWorks Team makeup: 48 men and 18 women (not counting mentors) Digital Incubation ThunderChickens’ robot, Ritchie X, and Killer Kowalski all share some common digital DNA. Before they were outfitted in steel, foam, and plastic, they were conceived in bits and bytes in CAD. Team 217, or “The Chicken Coop,” as the students call it, relied on a group of engineers and students trained in SolidWorks to develop the initial idea into a 3D model. Among their mentors was FANUC Robotics, an industrial robotic system maker that uses SolidWorks. According to the rules of the competition, the robot had to be built from 422 common parts, included in the kits FIRST provided. In its starting www.usﬁrst.org position, it had to 14 www.thunderchickens.org Cyber Blue (Team 234) Robot name: Ritchie X Software used: Autodesk Inventor Team makeup: 20 men and 11 women (not counting mentors) www.cyberblue234.com Norwell Robotics (Team 348) Robot name: Killer Kowalski (after Ross Kowalski, the Norwell High faculty member who mentored the team) Software used: SolidWorks Team makeup: 26 men and 7 women (not counting mentors) www.smallmetals.com/team348 www.cadalyst.com cadalyst July 2008 http://www.thunderchickens.org http://www.cyberblue234.com http://www.smallmetals.com/team348 http://www.usfirst.org http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - July 2008

Cadalyst - July 2008 Editor’s Window CAD Central FIRST Robotic Beasts Draw Students to Engineering Power! Speed! Action! — Mighty Mobile Workstations are Packed and Ready for Adventure! Vico Virtual Construction Suite 2008 AMD ATI FireGL V8600 and FireGL V8650 — 1-GB and 2-GB Graphics Cards Gaining Independence and Influence The Current State of MCAD Rewriting the Rules of PDM BIM Goes Residential CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Pleasures of Customization

Cadalyst - July 2008

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