http://couv.com Audio and video stories from Southwest Washington. Fri, 07 Nov 2014 16:49:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 Audio and video stories from Southwest Washington. Audio and video stories from Southwest Washington. no Audio and video stories from Southwest Washington. http://couv.com/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/rss_default.jpg http://couv.com http://couv.com/business/robotics-future-workforce http://couv.com/business/robotics-future-workforce#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:51:35 +0000 COUV.COM staff http://couv.com/?p=14409 http://couv.com/business/robotics-future-workforce/feed 0 anna kellogg,camas high school,david madore,deb mumm-hill,evergreen high school,FIRST Robotics,gabbie reiser,henry midles,hockinson high school,Israel,jordan thompson,keefe koenig More than 800 high school students and adult volunteers representing 38 teams from Clark County and Portland packed the house at Evergreen High School Jan. 7 to celebrate the kickoff of the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition. - FIRST, More than 800 high school students and adult volunteers representing 38 teams from Clark County and Portland packed the house at Evergreen High School Jan. 7 to celebrate the kickoff of the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition. FIRST, an acronym meaning “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology," is an international program in which students have six weeks to design, build, and program a robot using parts from a standardized kit. Teams enter competition where their robots perform live action games, both autonomously and under remote control. In 2011, more than two thousand teams competed in the United States, Canada, and Israel. This year teams in North America will compete at 52 regional events, including competitions in Seattle and Portland. Winners from those regional competitions will travel to St. Louis to compete in the world championship in April. Last year the team with students from Washougal, Camas and Hockinson high schools, Team Mean Machine, won first place in Seattle and first place in Portland, which earned it a spot at the 2011 world competition. The team of about two dozen kids did extremely well against the incredible competition and finished in the middle of the 88-team pack (story and video here). Teams praised for their dedication Local officials and business sponsors congratulated the students for participating in FIRST Robotics during the 7:30 a.m. opening ceremony at Evergreen High School. “At a time when most of your peers and, for that matter, my peers, are still in bed, you’re all here to take on the sort of things that are going to serve you very well in the future and are going to serve our communities really well in the future,” said Oregon state Rep. Tobias Reed. David Madore, CEO of Vancouver–based technology company US Digital and a FIRST Robotics sponsor, encouraged the crowd to put teammates first. “You can accomplish anything as long as you don’t care who gets the credit,” he said. Finally, after hearing recorded messages from celebrities and technology leaders from a live video stream, the students learned this year’s game: Rebound Rumble. Teams will have to create robots that can navigate a 27-foot by 54-foot court and shoot basketballs into four different hoops, while coordinating their robots with those from other teams. “It’s basically playing basketball with robots, so we’re going to have to think of all kinds of new ways to actually move a basketball and shoot it into hoops,” said Randy Nicholas, a team leader with the Evergreen High School FIRST Robotics team Green Wrenches. “I’m not going to get a lot of sleep, but I’m really looking forward to working with the entire team...building this really cool robot.” While 10 of the region’s teams are new, the 2011 regional champion and national finalist Team Mean Machine from Camas hopes to have another strong season. “I think our experience back at nationals is really going to help us because we know what to expect and how we can build our robot to compete at such a high caliber,” said team member Anna Kellogg. Workforce development strategy FIRST Robotics Pacific NW director Deb Mumm-Hill says the program is far more than fun and games. It is essentially a workforce development program that increases students’ interest and skills in science, technology, engineering, and math. “A child’s education is only going to be as strong as what they put into it and what they get out of it, and so if they’re very inspired to engage in their education and really understand math, and really understand science aspects, then they are going to be what our nation needs in the work force at the end of the day,” Mumm-Hill said. “The way that we do that is just through robotics – by making it really, really fun to apply things that they learn in the classroom.” Running a FIRST Robotics team doesn’t come cheap. It costs $15,000 for a team to compete in a regional event alone. Audio and video stories from Southwest Washington. no 4:48 http://couv.com/community/first-robotics-usd-visit http://couv.com/community/first-robotics-usd-visit#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:04:56 +0000 COUV.COM staff http://couv.com/?p=14289 http://couv.com/community/first-robotics-usd-visit/feed 0 camas high school,catherine le,christian kaneen,david madore,dean kamen,evergreen high school,FIRST Robotics,hayes freedom high school,henry midles,hockinson high school,jim stevens,mark hass Approximately 700 hundred Portland and Vancouver high school students will brave the predawn darkness Saturday morning and descend upon Vancouver’s Evergreen High School with one thing in mind: building robots. Approximately 700 hundred Portland and Vancouver high school students will brave the predawn darkness Saturday morning and descend upon Vancouver’s Evergreen High School with one thing in mind: building robots. Audio and video stories from Southwest Washington. no 2:21