Subject:
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Botball demo at SRS meeting on 7/21
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.us.smart
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Date:
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Wed, 18 Jul 2001 06:04:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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1050 times
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Hi Everyone,
I just saw the following mail on the SRS mailing list. This Saturday, July
21, there will be a special demo of BotBall. This is the high school Lego
competition that is taking place August 8 as part of the at AAAI convention
in Seattle.
Gus
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Hi all,
Please forward this message to anyone you think might be interested,
especially teachers and students.
I'm coming to town for the Seattle Robotics Society meeting this weekend to
recruit people to help with the Botball LEGO robot contest for high schools
and middle schools.
For those of you who don't already know, I left Newton Labs about a year ago
to move to California and join Anne, who's been at the NASA Ames Research
Center for several years working on prototype planetary rovers. I'm now
part of the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, developing some cool new
robot technology (hope to announce in a few months), and helping with the
Botball LEGO robot contest.
The Botball LEGO robot contest is an offshoot of the MIT LEGO Robot Contest,
which Anne and I founded a little over ten years ago. The Botball contest
has been around for about half that time, and is growing fairly quickly.
The basic idea is that teams of students each get a box of materials and six
weeks to build a robot. The robots compete head-to-head at regional and
national competitions. No remote-control allowed -- these robots are
autonomous.
This year's national competition will be in Seattle this August the 8th.
This is ironic, considering none of this year's over 180 Botball teams are
from Seattle! I'm hoping that members of the SRS, present and past :-), can
help fix this situation for the future.
I'm looking for four things:
1. Teachers and students interested to participate in next year's contest!
2. Companies interested to sponsor one or more schools. ($2K/team)
3. Engineers who would enjoy being mentors for teams.
4. Committed persons who would like to be part of a steering committee for
the Seattle area.
If you're at all interested, please come to the Seattle Robotics Society
meeting this Saturday 7/21. If you can drag a teacher or a student to the
meeting, great!
For non-SRS folks, the meeting starts at 10 am at:
Renton Technical College
Building J, Room H-102
3000 NE 4th Street
Renton, WA 98056-4195
There's a map at http://www.seattlerobotics.org/meetings.html
I've attached more information about Botball, as well as more information
about attending the 2001 National contest August 8th. Hope to see you this
Saturday! Don't hesitate to call or send e-mail if you're interested and
can't make it.
-- Randy
Randy Sargent
KISS Institute for Practical Robotics
(650) 852 9422
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More info about Botball:
The official botball website is at http://www.botball.org/
Botball is a hands-on technology-education team activity, designed
for middle and high school students, that uses the excitement of
robot-building and programming to engage students in science and
math. The program starts in spring with a hands-on workshop for
teachers (using the same robotkit that the students will use). This
workshop features an overview of robotics, hands-on experience in
building and programming a robot in C, and explores ways of using the
Botball activity to support inquiry based learning in science, math,
mechanical design, and other areas.
After the teachers' workshop, student teams will have about 6 weeks
to design, build and program small mobile robots to play this year's
game in the regional Botball tournament. Students also participate in
a research, design, and website competition during this time.
Although Botball robots are designed and made by students, we
encourage university or industry personnel to participate as mentors
and role models as they often can help with project management and
technical questions.
Botball is a program of KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, a
501(c)3 educational organization. For more information about Botball,
please see our website at www.botball.org.
------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the 2001 National Botball Contest
The 2001 National Botball Contest is being held in conjunction with
AAAI/IJCAI at the Convention Center downtown. Seeding rounds are August
7th, and the finals are Wednesday, August 8th, starting at 1pm.
IJCAI will charge admission to the exhibit halls as follows:
One day: $10/adult, $5/child, and $25/family
2 days or more: $20/adult, $10/child, and $40/family
Admission allows you to also see other contests, including RoboCup. See
http://www.ijcai-01.org/
Location: Exhibit hall B.
Schedule:
Tuesday, August 7
10:00 a.m. - Doors open for Registration, Pit Set Up, Practice
1:00 p.m. - Seeding Rounds Begin
~5:30 p.m. - Seeding Rounds Conclude
Wednesday
10:00 a.m. - Pit Set Up, Practice
1:00 p.m. - Double Elimination Begins
~5:00 p.m. - Final Double Elimination Rounds
~5:30 p.m. - Awards Ceremony
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