[kevinro]

I use my Tormach to help get high school students interested in learning to build things. I work with a program called FIRST which does robotics contests. Here is what my team of 24 students built on the Tormach over the last 6 weeks.

The game this year includes climbing up a 60 degree sloped pyramid.

The following machine was about 95% designed and 100% built by a group of high school students. The other 5% are the adult mentors. Most of the parts, including everything from aluminum sprockets, constant force spring spools, and the structure where done on my Tormach.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_d73uImo2s]FRC4089 Climbs the Pyramid - YouTube[/ame]

If you are interested in finding out more about FIRST, check out USFIRST.org

[Gerry Sweetland]

That is way cool. Clever design with the ratcheting type climb mechanism.
Let us know how it turns out.
Gerry

[MFchief]

Very nice work, some talented kids there!

However, a little disturbing in timing, I'm half-way thru the last book of Greg Benford's SF series on humans fighting for there lives against machine civilizations. LOL

[tbaker2500]

Sweet!
Looks like a LOT of lightening holes were milled. :-)

[05kevin]

Nice job Kevin!

This is my first year as a mentor for FRC 2046 (Tahoma) in Maple Valley.

Kevin

[kevinro]

Sweet!
Looks like a LOT of lightening holes were milled. :-)

Yeah, also known as the swiss cheese procedure. Takes the material from 8 ounces per foot to 4.8 ounces per foot, which is pretty substantial.

At contests, we have seen teams drill 15 pounds of holes with 1/2" drills! The robot (minus the 18lb battery) must weigh less than 120 pounds.

Kevin

[kevinro]

Nice job Kevin!

This is my first year as a mentor for FRC 2046 (Tahoma) in Maple Valley.

Kevin

You joined a great team!

[diyengineer]

Kevin, you must work @ boeing and sponsor a team im assuming? I work down at the frederickson plant at a machinist.

[kevinro]

Turns out that no, I don't work for Boeing. I am actually one of those lucky guys who worked for Microsoft in the late 80's to the mid 90's. I am now a full time volunteer for FIRST. I am the founding chairman of Washington FIRST Robotics. I spend about 10 months a year working with students trying to get them interested in being able to design and build stuff on teams.

So I am the guy who attempts to manage the 3000 volunteers in Washington state who are working with us. I also organize and run all of the events. This weekend, Central Washington University has an FRC competition. Next week Seattle. The following week Spokane. Thousands of students will be driving their robots on the field. If you are interested in watching, Friday and Saturday you can check out www.thebluealliance.com for a list of the webcasts of the FIRST competitions across the country. They run from 9am to 5pm both Fri and Sat.

98% of people who see this for the first time are amazed and inspired. The other 2% just don't get it and are part of the problem. :-)

[diyengineer]

That's awesome! Ya i wouldn't mind checking the Seattle one out. Boeing is always trying to scoop up volunteers, i almost did but have been working so much have not been able to find the time.

So the Seattle one should be streaming via webcast online?

[kevinro]

If you would like to see the robot contests, we are streaming them online for the next three weeks.

I am running 3 events in the next week. We are in Ellensburg this week. You can watch these contests online. Easy way is

www.firstwa.org

and click on the "Click here to watch the event LIVE!" link at the top. We run 9am to about 11:45 and 1:00 to 5:30 on Friday, 9am to 12 and 1:30 to 4:30 on Saturday. These are all Pacific time zone (Washington state)

Seattle is next week, same basic idea. The week after we are doing Spokane.

Nationally, there will be a number of events for the next several weeks. You can catch the other events at www.thebluealliance.com

This is well worth your time.