Boeing Provides Volunteer Mentors for ESHS Robotics Club

Physics teacher and Robotics Club advisor Tina Hawley says there wouldn't be a Robotics program at El Segundo High School if it weren't for Foundation funding and the volunteer mentors from local corporations who assist with the program. "Since I know very little about actually building a robot, the engineers that serve as mentors are invaluable to me. They bring a knowledge and enthusiasm for the program that really gets students excited about engineering and problem solving. Several of my former students have chosen fields in engineering, likely influenced by their exposure in the Robotics Club," she shares.
photo by Chris Glusac, Robotics Publicity Chairman

Boeing has three volunteer mentors serving with the ESHS robotics program this year. They learned about the opportunity through Boeing's Volunteer Network and were excited to participate because of their personal experience in similar programs. Kristine Skinner was involved in robotics in college; today she's an electrical engineer at Boeing. Throughout high school and college, Beth Voss did design and built test environments; today she's one of Boeing's structural engineers. Ben Siepser participated in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in high school and, just last fall, went searching for a way to get involved in the program locally. He's employed by Boeing as a sub-systems engineer.

photo by Chris Glusac, Robotics Publicity Chairman
Students in the ESHS Robotics Club spend many hours during the first few months of the year building a robot and preparing for the FIRST regional competition in March. FIRST is an organization founded by Dean Kamen (inventor of the Segway) with the vision:"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes." Innovation, self-confidence, leadership, and communication along with increased competence in science, engineering, and technology are just a few of the outcomes of student participation in FIRST events.

ROBOT-BUILDING SEASON AT ESHS
Volunteer mentors like Kristine, Beth, and Ben participate with the Robotics Club as much as they are able during the week and on weekends. In the fall semester, they meet with the students once a week after school to help prepare them for the building season, which begins after the first of the year.

The FIRST competition challenges teams to build a robot that will solve a common problem. Every team in the competition receives the same "kit of parts," from which to build their robot, along with a common set of rules and restrictions, which helps level the playing field. Teams have six weeks to plan, strategize, assemble, and test their robot as well as build a container and ship the robot so that it will arrive intact and on time at the competition site. The effectiveness of their efforts is put to the test during competition.

Prior to building, students are divided into groups that are responsible for different components of the project. Some are programmers, some are designers, and some are builders. This year there's also a publicity team responsible for publicizing the Club's activities through photographs, a progress blog, and a website.

After January 1st, the volunteers' time on campus increases exponentially to make
photo by Chris Glusac, Robotics Publicity Chairman
sure they are covering the hours the students are working. "The building season is intense," explains Hawley. On average, students put in 15 hours a week between January 1st and the ship date in mid-February.

It's not unusual to find them working four hours during the week and 12-hour days on the weekends, especially as the ship-date gets closer. Hawley is present the entire time and the mentors increase their time-commitment to make sure that--between them--there's volunteer coverage for each of the work groups.

"In the beginning, some students had no idea how to hold a drill, how to measure, really, how to do anything. It's such a transformation to see them teaching others how to drill holes properly. Some students didn't know how to work with others. They would yell over each other at first. Now, they meet as a team, each one has their say, it's considered by the group, and together they make a design. This is a project that really gives the students some real-world experience. They grow so much over the competition, we hardly recognize them at the end," says Beth.

photo by Chris Glusac, Robotics Publicity Chairman
Another mentor--from the Air Force--was deployed to Afghanistan last November. Disappointed that he wasn't going to be able to be there for the build, he decided to stay up late on Saturday nights (Afghanistan time) so that when the students arrived early on Saturday mornings (El Segundo time) they could call him on Skype to talk about their progress with the robot and ask him questions.

WORKING WITH MENTORS
Mentors are on hand whenever the students gather to supervise, ensure safety, and encourage students to step up and lead the
different teams. They also help students develop good methodologies for design and building and may be more actively involved with hands-on activities where students lack experience. However, they aren't there to provide the answers. Instead, the mentors often find themselves saying, "I don't know either, let's go find out," when a student asks a question.

"The goal is to help them figure things out for themselves by reading documents and learning about the specs. They are learning how to build something to meet an objective that's defined by someone else. There's a lot of creativity and flexibility in what you build to meet those requirements, but it ends up being a big lesson in engineering," says Ben.

From what she's seen, Kristine has been impressed with the students, many of whom are freshmen. "For high school students trying to keep other high school students organized and on track, they've done really well. The officers speak to the group before we get started, they make sure we stay on task and on schedule, and they have wrap-up comments at the end of the work session. They are showing good leadership and team work," she says.

Beth says she'd definitely volunteer to be a mentor again next year. "There's such a reward in seeing them grow. It really helps me as I'm trying to communicate complicated engineering skills to students. It's definitely worth every hour, every drop of sweat, and every cut finger," she shares.

BOEING'S COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION
As an ESEF Corporate Partner, Boeing has donated close to $100,000 to the Foundation. Matching gifts by Boeing employees and additional support directly to the District puts Boeing's total contributions toward education in El Segundo well over that mark. "Boeing invests in a number of things all over the world, but education, by far, is the number one investment we make. We look to invest in communities where we work, where our employees live, and where our contributions can help improve the learning environment for students. The company has been a long-time partner with the District and the Foundation," says Tamika Lang who works in Global Corporate Citizenship at Boeing and serves as the company's representative on the ESEF Board.

Several schools across the country receive grants from Boeing to cover application fees for the FIRST Robotics Competition. In addition, Boeing encourages employee involvement at those schools. "Offering volunteer time helps connect our employees to the schools and programs we support," explains Lang.

Boeing's grant to the ESEF is intended to specifically help with programs that encourage 21st century skills like innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration--all of which are learning outcomes for the students in the ESHS Robotics Club. Students also have the added benefit of hands-on learning that relates to their science and math courses.

"A huge benefit of the overall program is that it helps kids academically and socially. We see a deficit of students going into the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs. Robotics gets kids excited and makes their schoolwork relevant," says Lang.

On February 27th, The Boeing Company announced a significant four-year national partnership with FIRST to further advance the Company's commitment to help shape the future of technology innovation in the United States.

The 2009 LA regional FIRST competition (one of 42 regional competitions) was held March 12-14th in Long Beach. All over the U.S. and internationally, nearly 44,000 high school students on 1,725 teams will compete in this year's competition – a game called "Lunacy" in which robots must pick up balls and score them in trailers hitched to their opponents' robots during a two-minute, fifteen second match. "Lunacy" is played on a low-friction floor, which means teams must contend with the laws of physics. (From the FIRST website: www.usfirst.org)