Penfield Robotics Team 1511 Rolling Thunder owns Beantown
March 30, 2010
Penfield Robotics Team 1511 Rolling Thunder goes to Beantown - and proves that Rochester can innovate too!
Boston, MA, Sunday, March 28, 2010: The Penfield Robotics Team 1511 “Rolling Thunder” competed this past weekend in the Boston Regional Robotics competition. This team, which had already won the Engineering Inspiration award in the local Finger Lakes Regional in early March, proved to their competitors from Boston and throughout the Northeast that Rochester is a hotbed of innovation and student achievement. The team brought home the competition’s most coveted award (the Chairman’s award) and placed second overall in the robot competition qualifying again as a finalist for the International competition in Atlanta. The team won honors for the “Coopetition bonus - tying with the team seeded first overall in the competition by competing in the matches with the highest total scores. The team won an honorable mention in the Safety Award competition, and one team member, PHS Junior Crystal Vongnaphone, was selected as one of two students at the Regional to be a finalist for the new Dean’s List award - an award for excellence in student performance. Crystal is one of just over 100 Dean’s List finalists worldwide.
The Chairman’s Award represents the spirit of FIRST. It honors the team that, in the judges’ estimation, best represents a model for other teams to emulate, and which embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST. It remains FIRST’s most prestigious award, and qualifies the team to compete internationally in Atlanta for the International Chairman’s Award. The Judges at this year’s event in Boston had one recommendation for improvement: Clone Yourselves!
The Boston Regional was held on the Boston University campus in the Agannis Arena. Over 50 teams from that region and across the Northeast competed. Over 50 team members, mentors and parents travelled to Boston for the event. With, over 40 Penfield high school student team members-the students, their parents, team alumni, and 26 active teachers and mentors dedicate thousands of hours of time to the team. They work together year round, on top of building a competitive robot in 6 weeks. Significant accomplishments for Team 1511 included hundreds of hours of community service, robotics demos, outreach, recruiting, finding sponsors, FIRST Lego League help and assistance, helping rookie teams, helping out other teams at competitions, and even helping start FLL teams in other countries like the Bahamas. The presenters showed a map with Team 1511 “Thunderbolts” marking all the teams they had helped throughout the US and the world. The team was judged against 53 other teams who attended the Boston Regional, including teams from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, England, Brazil, Connecticut, and Maine (More info at www.bostonfirst.org). To qualify the team submitted an essay, a video presentation and 3 team members presented to a judging panel (http://bit.ly/b7eXBk ). This is the 3rd Chairman’s award for the team (the last one being in 2009 when they won the Chesapeake Regional Chairman’s Award). The team can only submit an award application at one regional each year. Penfield Robotics team has an impressive record of over 26 trophies in 6 years, 3 Regional Chairman’s awards and the team won an International Judges Award in Atlanta in 2009.
The teams major sponsor is Harris RF Communications, and many of its 23 mentors are Harris Engineers, led by Larry Lewis the engineering team lead mentor. Other local sponsors include: Comella Orthodontics, Simcona Electronics, Schuler-Haas Electric, S & W Technologies, Penfield Hess, OS-Cubed, Inc., Debbie Supply, Drelick’s Welding, VanBortel Machines, Family First Federal Credit union, Huther Painting, IC2S, International Art Acquisitions, Maxie’s Ice Cream, National Fire Adjustment Company, Park Dental, STEM Robotics, Penfield HS Student Council, Drake Environmental, Town and Country Travel, Penfield HS PTSA and many smaller sponsors.
FIRST (which stands For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an international organization that promotes leadership and engineering in the elementary through high school environment by encouraging a cooperative team effort between professional engineers, teachers and parents. More information about FIRST can be found at www.usfirst.org .
The team has many pictures available from the Boston Regional and other events at http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com . More information about Rolling Thunder can be found on our award winning website at www.penfieldrobotics.com .
As usual the reaction from local press was Ho Hum - not worth mentioning. Sigh.
RIT 48 - create an entrepreneurial business in 48 hours
March 14, 2010
Starting this Friday RIT students will have the opportunity to create an entrepreneurial web-based business in 48 hours. RIT 48 has selected this blog author to be a judge for this highly competitive and interesting competition. So what is RIT48? They are glad you asked: RIT48 aims to bring together students from various disciplines to pitch, plan, develop and launch a web startup in one weekend— or, as the name suggests, 48 hours. An intense, energy fueled, entrepreneurial event, RIT48 was designed to showcase the innovative and creative spirit of RIT students while offering the opportunity to learn and meet new people. Always had a cool idea for a web startup but never the time or resources to make it happen? RIT48 is for you. You can form a team, develop your idea, and launch a web startup to the world in a mere 48 hours. We’ll bring the coffee.
The competition is open to Alumi, Students and Faculty, but all development of the website or business plan must be completed during the 48 hours of the competition.
I’m excited to say I’ve been selected to judge this awesome event and I’m really looking forward to working with my fellow Judges - Susan Beebe (SM expert), Aaron Newman (SM2/Techrigy), and Liz Lawley (Director of the Lab for Social Computing at RIT) on this task. The top winning team will receive $600. Here is the schedule for the 2 days:
Friday (9AM-All Night): Introductions, Planning, Developing
Saturday (10am-7pm): Testing, Tweaking, Refining, Presenting
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Good luck to the team members and may the best team win!
FIRST Robotics Regional competitions begin
March 5, 2010
Imagine a sport where the participants put more hours in practicing in six weeks than other sports do in a whole year - and then they practice all year too! Imagine a sport where there is around a 1-2 ratio between coaches and participants. Imagine a sport where EVERY SINGLE participant can go pro, and get a job helping their country and their company build the devices and software needed to keep us competitive in the world economy. Imagine a sport that gives every participante the opportunity to learn leadership, gracious professionalism, coopetition, good values, and an excellent work ethic. Now imagine that sport had only one competition a year in your area - wouldn’t you want to go!? PLEASE come cheer on the hard working kids at your local FIRST ROBOTICS competition. It’s just one day out of your life - it’s countless hours out of theirs and their mentors. It’s free and in Rochester it’s at the RIT Gordon Field house TODAY AND TOMORROW ONLY!
