Community college team, the only of its kind, takes ‘best performing’ bots at 2023
挑战
本杰明·曼德尔—— 记者:我的礼貌 的Chronicle-新闻
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With freezing temperatures and sand everywhere, the robot worked its way through an
obstacle course; then it did it four more times, on its own.
The 2023 Colorado Space Grant Consortium Robotics Challenge, held annually at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Alamosa, 挑战s teams to develop autonomous robots 并在友好挑战中测试它们.
澳门永利线上博彩娱乐场 Robotics developed two robots for the 2023 挑战, completing all five courses at the event, in two divisions.
“The 挑战 was inspired by testing of the Viking Mars Lander missions of the 1970s,” Greg Boyce, a 澳门永利线上博彩娱乐场 spokesman 说 in a statement. “硬件 those missions was tested at the Dunes, because the s和re was believed to be the closest thing on earth to what rovers on Mars would face.”
野外寻回犬固执的爷爷(F.R.O.G.), a rover with a mechanical-electro magnetized arm, and its counterpart, Frequently Lost Youngster (F.L.Y.)，是仅有的两个机器人 in the competition of 20 colleges and universities to complete all five courses and were judged to be the “best performing” robots of the day.
由TSC机器人公司开发.R.O.G. 和F.L.Y. 是一个学期的高潮吗 work for the nine-member team consisting mainly of Las Animas County high school students.
Of the nine members, seven attend GOAL Academy, Hoehne High School or are homeschooled.
But the age of the team gives little insight into what it is able to accomplish. ”( advisors’) always been very accepting of high school students,” 说 Landon Knight, TSC机器人的队长. “To be on the team, you have to take her programming class, and so that’s how she kind of, I guess you could say – weed out – people that 不一定是负责任的.
So that’s definitely one way that she gets good high schoolers. 但我不知道. 这很酷，因为我们什么都做了. 我觉得这是我们最好的一年 ever had before, 和re were schools out there like (Colorado School of) Mines and CSU-Pueblo and Colorado State University was out there, and we beat everyone.”
The nine member team built three robots for the 挑战: the large rover, and two
F的副本.L.Y.较小的探测车是为了显示F.R.O.G.的能力
lost youngster from the depths of the confined sand-filled course.
The bots were redeveloped based on previous years in an effort to remedy past issues, 比如车轮问题. The larger of the two bots was based on the team’s 2016 bot S.A.B.L.E., also known as “Scoop and Bucket Land Explorer.”
“We essentially just built upon the bad things that we had, just the problems we had ”奈特说. “所以，更多的清理，诸如此类的事情.”
Members of the team, which would use 3D-design, 3D-printing, laser cutting, programming, electrical engineering and other fields of science and mathematics to develop the robots, started the project in December 2022 — including design of the external and 内部元件和测量.
“It was a pretty fun experience,” 说 Caleb Moorefield, a junior at Goal Academy 他帮助开发了F。.R.O.G. “There were definitely some better points, and worse points. But overall, I enjoyed all of it and learned a lot.摩尔菲尔德，他有兴趣 in plumbing, 说 being on the team has taught him skills that he can take elsewhere, such as teamwork, programming and how to read design documents.
“The reason I participated was mostly to figure out what it was all about,” Moorefield 说. “刚来这里的时候，我不知道如何编程. 我有过一些，很少的经验 or exposure to programming — so I knew a little bit, but hardly any.”
A big benefit for the team is 学习 to work together and exposure to industry leaders. Students have gone on to work for NASA, SpaceX, Sandia Labs and Lockheed Martin.
Karen Howl, a mechanical advisor for TSC Robotics since 2009, 说 that through the
program she has seen shy students come out of their
shells and become leaders, and that for some, it’s the first experience they have
作为团队的一部分工作.
The team is also advised by Earl Nesbit (electrical), Hayden Alworth (programming) 辛迪·克莱门茨(主要顾问).
Clements 说 some of the biggest lessons of the team come down to teamwork and time 管理. The team has also expanded the size of the bots, growing them over the 多年来，它呈现出自己的学习曲线.
“There’s no other program like (it) in Trinidad, and that’s for sure,” Clements 说.
“I mean especially for hands-on engineering projects. 这也给了他们动手的机会
experience so they’re more attractive to universities and scholarship programs.”
The team also attended the COSGC’s Symposium this year, where they presented on their 本学期的研究. The team saw its first research paper accepted in 2011, and since then it has won the 人’s Choice Award nine times and won the session award for the paper, presentation five times, and in 2023, Trini9dad State Robotics 赢得了梦寐以求的大奖!