The next generation getting the vision.
Max Bales, Greg Bales, and Ethan Arteaga with a
bothead’s favorite tool handy.
man, struggling in school, brought
to the top through building and
fighting bots.
Eddy begins:
"Our science teacher, Mr.
Stephen Hanrahan, is the one that
has worked with our students and
had the robotics program come alive
…Kelvin Gomez came to Immaculate
Conception Catholic School August
‘08. He was in sixth grade and his
reading and mathematics skills were
at a first grade level. Our program at
Immaculate had not really worked
with a student that was performing
this low ... I decided to give him an
opportunity, but I could not make
any guarantees. Kelvin was accepted
into our modified program for
students with learning disabilities. He
is a very respectful and proper young
man, who always has a smile on his
face and a kind word on his lips.
Kelvin participated in various
activities during the remainder of his
sixth grade year.
Garcia also notes that Kelvin is a
"kinesthetic and auditory learner."
This means he learns better from
hearing things repeated by others,
and having his hands on the job.
Sitting and reading isn't this kind of
learner’s strong suit, but building
robots sure seems to be!
Story #3: The Pink
Team Helps the Thin
Blue Line
Kelvin Gomez (left) and the
team from Immaculate
Conception Catholic School.
This story is summarized from a
press release from the Brevard
County, Florida School Board; the
Pink Team's website, NASA, and
teacher's blogs.
When Detective Christopher
Cochie from the Rockledge Police
Department, FL, first approached
FIRST Robotic Competition (FRC)
Team 233 ("The Pink Team") to help
build a robot for his SWAT team, he
had something fairly simple in mind,
like a remote controlled miniature
car with a camera mounded on the
hood. The team took his ideas,
added some of their own, and came
back to him instead with a state-of-the-art robot that could climb up
steps, trudge through mud, toss a
phone, launch flash bangs, and do
much more, which they dubbed the
"PDbot."
Its creators were well versed in
the mechanics of robotics, thanks to
the competitions they'd participated
in. Given the chance to help their
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