‘Building successful students one robot at a time’

by Dave DeMars

news@thenewsleaders.com

At 4 p.m., the wide corridors of Sauk Rapids High School meander in circular squares past mostly dark and silent rooms. But listen closely and follow the sounds of excited human voices to room NW226 and you will find groups of students slavishly tinkering with strange-looking contraptions.

They share and connect ideas as easily as they connect the arrays of wires and erector-set parts, then disconnect and reconnect again in a different way. You have stumbled onto the Robotics Lab. In one area of the room surrounded by a small group of students is fourth-year teacher and advisor Adam Johnson. He does not teach directly so much as facilitate learning and inquiry by asking thought-provoking questions.

“It’s obviously incorporating STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics),” Johnson said. “We also work on teamwork and responsibility.”

Johnson and two mentors, Aaron Johnson (high-school robotics mentor) and Jeff Jaschke (elementary-school robotics mentor) teach using a variation of the engineering-design process: ideate, create, solve and refine. Of course before those steps can be put into practice, students must be certain they understand the problem they are trying to solve, and it helps to know what others have done that can help in creating a solution. If that sounds a bit like research, it’s because it is.

Johnson is happiest when students do more reflection on the process rather than simply solving the problem.

“I’m happier if they get awards for showing their documentation and showing what they are really learning than about them getting a first-place trophy,” he said.

Not every attempt to solve a problem ends in success. Ask nearly any of the budding engineers in the room, and they will tell you a good share of what they do is trial and error. They adhere to the old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

On a normal day, Johnson will have 20 to 25 students involved with the design-and-tinker process. Students range from elementary level to seniors in high school. There are two robotics teams at the high-school level. The older students help the younger ones; the experienced help the inexperienced.

“This is just about a year-round program,” Johnson said. “We are a co-curricular program.”

Students begin to learn the robotics/engineering process early in the school year and continue to build and refine and compete in head-to-head robotics competitions with other schools throughout the year, Johnson said.

Each year the teams are given specific tasks the robots they design will have to be able to complete, Johnson explained. This year the task is to design a robot that can lift a star-shaped object and a cube-shaped object about two-and-a-half feet in the air, and place it on the other side of a fence. Teams are graded on whether they can place the object in a near zone or a far zone in relation to the fence. More points are awarded for placement of objects in the far zone.

It seems like a simple enough task until one has to design a robot that can perform the task again and again without fail. One of the challenges was to create a robot that was stable enough to lift the star without tipping over backward. The problem was solved by adding a counterbalance stabilizer extending about six inches in back of the main robot frame.

It may all seem like a lot of fun, but students learn more than just robotics in the program.

“I’ve had plenty of students who have gone off and done business,” Johnson said. “In a lot of ways we are a team that designs our own brand, basically our own brand name. We are fundraising and doing all kinds of sponsor opportunities and tours of facilities and things like that to raise funds for the competitions, and to buy the parts and things we need to compete.”

This year the program has 20 corporate sponsors. Johnson allows students to decorate their robot products with the decals and names of the corporate sponsors just like NASCAR drivers decorate their cars with sponsors’ names.

“We put our sponsors all over the robots, and our banners and pit areas at the competitions and things like that,” Johnson said.

The value to kids

Johnson also pointed out it’s not just students interested in technology who join the robotics team.

“Not everybody is going to school post-secondary for engineering just because they are in robotics,” Johnson said. “A lot of kids start doing it and it gets a little addicting, I think.”

Part of the attraction is it’s a way of forming relationships and friendships. Kids who graduated two or three years ago still maintain communications with the group, Johnson noted.

“It helps me work with other people, and it helps me to solve different problems at different processes,” said Adam Iburg in describing the value of robotics. “If I see a problem and there is no book to tell me how to solve it, I can figure it out on my own.”

Iburg is a junior and plans to attend St. Cloud Technical College to study automotive technology. He said this is his second year in robotics, and he formed some fast friendships with students who graduated and are attending colleges in other states.

One of only two females in the room, junior Tristen Tyson-Anderson, laughingly explained having a roomful of guys wasn’t what motivated her to get involved in robotics.

“I joined more just to learn the process of how to do things on my own,” she said. “Being a girl and being underestimated all the time when it comes to mechanics, it’s kind of a nice learning curve for me to realize there is so much more for me to learn.”

She has cemented her place on the A team and is a valuable team member in spite of the fact this is her first year. She said she’s learned to program, and the names of parts and how they all fit together and form the working robot.

“I’m not going to lie,” Tyson-Anderson said. “When I started I had no idea what a wrench was. But Brian (her teammate) is the best teacher.”

That is part of the larger goal Johnson has for the robotics program.

“We’re working on building successful students one robot at a time,” Johnson said. “I try to get them all to remember that is our goal. We don’t really care if we get first place, but we are definitely going to be competitive when we compete.”