Business Notes
(Issue 17, 2010)
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07-25-2010 --- From robots...
Forsyth County, Georgia’s robotics program completed its fifth season with growth reaching hundreds more students. The Forsyth Alliance, an umbrella organization formed to administer funds donated by AutomationDirect, managed the county’s FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) involvement, which includes over 35 Lego League teams in elementary schools, as well as the advanced high-school level FRC team. Six Forsyth Lego League teams advanced to the Georgia State Championship, where the final top five out of 48 teams included three of those teams - the Brick Busters were 2nd Place Champions, Team Super Awesome were 3rd Place Champions, and Crash Test Smarties received 3rd place in robot performance.
This past season, the Alliance expanded its support to include the BEST and VEX competitions as well. The VEX program in particular has become very popular since entry fees and kit of parts costs are significantly less than the FRC program (Fig.1). County VEX teams won seven regional tournaments, and nine Forsyth teams (out of 22 teams sent from the Georgia/Florida region) qualified to attend the World Championships in Dallas in late April, one of whom had won the Georgia state competition (West Forsyth High). Three of North Forsyth High’s teams garnered a “Cooperate” award at the World Championship finals, celebrating extraordinary teamwork.
One interesting note for this year is that Forsyth Alliance board chairman Rick Folea has the lead on writing the requirements for a planned Robotics Merit Badge for the Boy Scouts of America. An enthusiastic Forsyth Board of Education member said, when learning of the news, “How can I start working on my badge?!”
Figure 1, 2010 Season VEX Robot
… to rockets!
AutomationDirect has gotten into the air as well, with sponsorship of rocketry teams at local high schools. The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) is the world's largest rocket contest, sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and the National Association of Rocketry (NAR). According to the TARC Web site, “Approximately 7,000 students from across the nation compete in TARC each year. Teams design, build and fly a model rocket that reaches a specific altitude and duration determined by a set of rules developed each year. The top 100 teams, based on local qualification flights, are invited to Washington, DC, in May for the national finals. Prizes include $60,000 in cash and scholarships split between the top 10 finishers. NASA invites top teams to participate in their Student Launch Initiative, an advanced rocketry program.”
For the 2008-2009 season, the South Forsyth High group, sponsored in part by AutomationDirect, was the lone Georgia representative at the National Championship in May 2009. The South Forsyth kids attained the best score in the history of TARC (Team America Rocketry Challenge) and sat in first place in the nation after the first round. Unfortunately, the second launch didn’t go as well, so it knocked them down to 11th place in the final standings.
For the 2009-2010 season, the contest guidelines required students to build a rocket that would:
- reach 825 feet in altitude
- have a hang time of 40-45 seconds
- bring a raw egg up and back safely
- use streamers as a recovery device (no parachutes)
The contest started in November with 669 teams vying for the top prize nationwide. This year AutomationDirect assisted the fledgeling Lambert High Rocketry Team, who successfully qualified for the National Finals with an 830-foot flight that lasted 42.23 seconds. At the May 15th-16th Finals in Manassas, Virginia, the top 100 qualifying teams got a single launch, and the top 20 earned their way into the final "flyoff" for the championship. The Lambert team placed 14th going into that final round, a great achievement for a first-year program. Due to a slight technical difficulty (torn streamer) in the final round, they finished in 16th place overall, and were the top finisher among Georgia schools.
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