Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - September/October 2015 - (Page 22)

So Much FUN i didn't meAn to get into robotics. i wAs A 14-yeAr-old freshmAn, wAding Aimlessly through the first few weeks of high school, when mrs. sAnto, my biology teAcher, ApproAched me with An interesting opportunity: A locAl orgAnizAtion, the AlliAnce for working together (Awt), wAs hosting A robotics competition thAt pAired locAl mAnufActuring compAnies with teAms of high school students. the Aim of the competition wAs to construct A remote-controlled robot with A single purpose: to AttAck And destroy other robots. needless to sAy, i wAs immediAtely intrigued. it wAsn't long before mrs. sAnto hAd delightedly whipped up A teAm consisting of myself And four other girls my Age. B efore I continue, I should note that our participation in the AWT robotics competition was unusual: I was attending Beaumont School, a Catholic all-girls school in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The majority of workers in manufacturing (and most engineering) fields are male-and so were most of the students in the competition. Our mentors probably didn't expect to work with a group of teenage girls, but our team soon proved that defying expectations was our specialty. Creating a Monster The process of designing, building, and testing a robot proved more arduous than we could have imagined. My teammates and I naturally wanted to create the deadliest robot possible-in other words, we wanted to win. That meant our robot would need a balance of maneuverability and strength, all while staying under the 15-pound weight limit imposed by the competition rules. We carefully studied videos of past competitions and noted the characteristics of the most successful robots. We furiously scribbled any concept that came to mind on a giant pad of paper, eventually wallpapering the confer- 22 imagine ence room that served as our home base with a panoply of ideas. From the first day, our mentors guided our efforts by fielding our endless questions, identifying the most feasible designs, and recommending materials. We learned that steel was the strongest, but would be far too heavy for our purposes, while aluminum was lightweight but too easily dented. To our profound disappointment, flamethrowers, chemical weapons, and untethered projectiles (i.e., bullets) were prohibited. We managed to agree on a satisfactory design consisting of three sloped, armored sides to deflect opponents' attacks, with a fourth side housing a sharp, cylindrical spinner that spun at over 6,000 rotations per minute. The "innards"- motors, wires, etc.-and wheel assembly would be safely encased within the robot's aluminum chassis. Rather than crafting our armor out of a metal, as other teams were sure to do, we chose polycarbonate, a particularly resistant type of polymer. Over a period of six months, our team spent nearly a hundred hours working in the machine shop of Christopher Tool and Manufacturing, our sponsor company and our mentors' employer. Every Saturday morning, we would meet there at the crack of dawn Sept/Oct 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - September/October 2015

Circuit Training Electrical Engineering at CTY
Turning Brainwaves into Action Meet ARTIE, the robot activated by thoughts
Robotics in the Real World How robots are helping us explore space, overcome disability, and so much more
My First FIRST The climbing robot that taught me to aim high
Adventures in Botball
So Much Fun, It’s Inhuman Destroying the competition in combat robotics
Born to Build The making of an engineer
The Engineering Summer Academy at Penn Three weeks that launched my future
Music in the Woods Six weeks at Tanglewood
Big Picture
In My Own Words Daniel H. Wilson, author of Robopocalypse and Robogenesis
Selected Opportunities and Resources
Off the Shelf Review of Obert Sky’s Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options Interview with NASA robotics engineer Jaakko Karras
One Step Ahead Be fearless
Planning Ahead for College Express lessons in financial aid
Students Review Dartmouth College
Creative Minds Imagine Poetry contest winners
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - September/October 2015