2010 Issue

38 I KNOW THAT, AND YOU KNOW that. And we both know how cool it is to be an engineer. But how do we convince today’s students that they want to become tomorrow’s engineers? How do we make engineering cool? Believe it or not, there are ways to get kids interested in engineering. One program that is showing kids the magic of engineering is FIRST – For Inspiration and Rec- ognition of Science and Technology. The vision of FIRST, as stated by its founder, inventor Dean Kamen, is “To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are cel- ebrated and where young people dream of be- coming science and technology heroes.”(http:// www.usfirst.org/aboutus/content.aspx?id=34, accessed 17 Nov 2009). FIRST has several programs that involve students of different ages. Locally, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is involved in supporting FIRST in several ways. BYU Lego Challenge The FIRST Lego League is a challenge for kids from 9 to 14 years old. The kids design robots using LEGOMINDSTORMS to complete certain tasks. The student section of ASME at BYU hosted a similar competition in the spring of 2008. The competition involved six Provo elementary schools. BYU engineering students acted as mentors for teams of five or six students from each school. They used a LEGOMINDSTORMS kit to create a robot that would climb up and over a set of stairs. The teams had five weeks to complete their robots. After the five weeks, there was a final competi- tion at BYU, shown in Figure 1. Local businesses donated small prizes for the teams and their mentors. FIRST Robotics Competition The FIRST robotics competition is for high school students. The students form teams, with men- Tomorrow’s Engineers TERRY D. HAWS, JR, PE We all know engineers change the world. Engineers take scientific discoveries and make them practical for everyday use. Look around – almost everything around us was designed by an engineer. tors from universities and industry. The teams receive a standard kit of parts, with which they build a robot to compete against other high school teams. The competition in 2009 was titled “Lunacy”. It modeled the designing of lunar rovers. In the competition, the robots were required to maneuver and pick up “moon rocks” (actually nine inch diameter webbed balls). They then tried to dump the “moon rocks” into the trailers of the robots of the opposing team. The team with the least number of balls in their trailers won the round. To simulate the lunar environment, the standard kit included specially designed wheels. The competition occurred on a special, low-friction playing surface. The combination of wheels and playing surface simulated lunar gravity, which is only one-sixth that found here on earth. The excitement comes from the competition – each team travels to a regional competition, where they compete against other teams. Each round in the competition features two alliances of three teams each. Each team plays in a num- ber of rounds, competing with and against all different teams. The top-placing teams then compete for the right to go on to the national competition, held each year in Atlanta. FIRST is just beginning to catch on in Utah. In 2009, there were only five teams in the state: In- Tech, Blanding, Weber, West, andWoods Cross. And InTech and West were rookie teams. But the movement is slowly catching on. The Utah section of ASME helped sponsor the team from Woods Cross High School. As part of the deal, Woods Cross reported to the section on their adventures, and demonstrated their robot, named “Orion”, see Figure 2 and Figure 3. The 2009 challenge began in early January, when the teams received their kits and the rules for the competition. The competition was unlike any that had come before, presenting new chal- lenges to overcome. The team then had six weeks to design, build, and test their robot. They decided on a small