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By Melissa Haughton, Community Service Chair
When was the last time you saw middle school and high school students create a remote-controlled robot out of a box of junk? Several Lone Star Chapter members witnessed as these amazing students participated in Dallas BEST and put their engineering, science, and technology skills to work.
In addition to creating the perfect robot, students had yet another challenge—documenting their process. That is where our chapter came in! Lone Star Chapter members volunteered as process notebook judges for the 2003 Dallas BEST competition.
Dallas BEST is part of BEST Robotics, Inc. BEST is an acronym for Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology, and the competition exposes high school and middle school students to those concepts. Texas Instruments and Raytheon sponsor the event. Using teamwork, students built and operated a remote-controlled machine. Each team received an identical collection of parts to build a machine and could not use extra materials. These students brainstormed to design and build these machines, and the competition fostered critical thinking, hands-on participation, and teaming. Students discovered alternative ways of solving difficult challenges, and they gained real-life experience. In addition to building a robot, the teams competed for the BEST award, which recognizes the best package, including marketing, advertising, promotion, and the process notebook to document the process.
Before students turned in the notebooks, Ann Balaban and Kathlyn Auten volunteered their time to develop and teach a "What is a process notebook?" class to help the students understand the guidelines of the competition. The class is now being incorporated into the BEST Robotics, Inc. new hub workshop, and most of the hubs are going to offer this class in their workshops next year. Ann said, "I am amazed at the difference this made in the quality of the notebooks overall."
Judy Glick-Smith volunteered as a process notebook judge and a Game Day judge. She said: "It is incredibly important for kids to develop the documentation habit at an early age. As they grow and learn, they will recognize the importance of the documentation process in decision capture, product specification, knowledge transfer, and maintenance activities. This habit will carry through into their adult years."
All the notebook judges met at TI on Tuesday, October 14, at 6 p.m. To judge the process notebooks, we needed to have the following work-related experience:
Some of the notebooks were excellent, but we had to be careful not to confuse these students with professional engineers or technical writers. Elizabeth Bailey pointed out that she thought more than four notebooks "were more than high school level." She said, "I have seen junior college level work and college level work that would have a hard time competing with the accomplishments in communication that these students have shown."
While we judged the notebooks, we made comments to guide the students toward meeting BEST guidelines and help them create better communication efforts for next year's competition. We based our feedback on the information the students provided. Another volunteer, Al Patzke, said: "The ability to communicate is integral to their [the students'] future successes in school and beyond. If you can't get your point across in a clear, consistent, and succinct manner, then you will be limited in your career growth."
Kathlyn Auten volunteered as a judge during Game Day, and she added: "It's very inspiring to see how hard these kids work. Many of them put in unbelievable hours (some over 100) on the robotics project. Many work every evening and every weekend, on their own time. And the quality of ideas they come up with is very impressive, sometimes amazing! The kids are bright, articulate, and enthusiastic. Judging and giving them feedback is a very worthwhile investment. My experience giving them suggestions is that they soak up everything, and you can see the light bulbs going off. It's great to see!"
Our chapter awarded a cash prize for the schools that won first, second, and third places for the notebook competition. Here are the final results:
Tracey Etheredge, Lincoln High School sponsor, said she was excited when she found out that technical writing would play a larger role in the competition this year. She said, "It is important to include technical writing at an early age because students have not been required to write as much in their math, science, and other technical classes." According to her, the curriculum is changing, and students must now work harder on "explaining, verifying, and justifying."
Lincoln High School will use the money it received from our chapter to help the deficit their team has already faced after finding it difficult to obtain financial support throughout the competition.
The overall results of the competition are as follows:
In the future, we hope to get other STC chapters across the country involved in the event. We truly appreciate the help of the following STC volunteers during the judging of the notebooks and during Game Day: Kathlyn Auten, Ann Balaban, Elizabeth Bailey, Judy Glick-Smith, Melissa Haughton, Cynthia Isley, Al Patzke, Jan Shelton, and Joshua Thomson.
Mary Guinn, Robotics Team sponsor of Bryan Adams High School, said she truly appreciates everything the volunteers did to turn this event into a success. "Thank you for all the endless hours of work you and your colleagues put into the competition to make it possible in the first place," she said. "I can't believe how patient the engineers are with the kids and, I might add, coaches."
The community service committee hopes that even more members will volunteer next year. If you have time next year, please volunteer!