Newsletter, PublicityBy Nate Laverdure

Press release: Peninsula STEM Gym provides practice opportunities for Hampton Roads youth robotics teams

Intentional Innovation Foundation announces the founding of the Peninsula STEM Gym, a place for student robotics teams to develop competition robots and have real-world engineering experiences that will inspire a lifelong interest in science and math. Establishment of the Peninsula STEM Gym is made possible in part by a generous Community Knights GIFT Grant.

Located in central Newport News, the Peninsula STEM Gym offers local student robotics teams a 2,500 square foot practice area for testing robot functionality against the same field elements as they’ll encounter at real competitions. The facility will enable teams to gain driving practice, discover ways to iterate and improve their robot designs, and become better prepared to compete against other top Virginia teams as well as on the world stage. Four Peninsula student robotics teams, with an average of 20 students each, plan to use the STEM Gym to practice for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) in spring 2019.

By enabling these students to better practice their sport in a STEM Gym, we increase the likelihood that they can “turn pro” upon graduation, entering career fields which reward the communication and leadership skills that they learn through existing mentor-based robotics competitions.

“This is going to fundamentally change our approach to both software development and also drive team practice” says Todd Ferrante, drive team coach of Triple Helix Robotics, the competitive robotics team at Menchville High School in Newport News. “It really is a game changer.” Donald Williams, the head teacher and coach of the Phantom Mentalists, Phoebus High School’s team in Hampton, says: “The students need practice driving the robot to perform well in competitions, just like any other sport. FRC is a sport like any other at the high school level. It is just a sport for the budding engineers, programmers and manufacturing.”

Intentional Innovation Foundation, Inc. transforms students and our community into evangelists for science and technology by providing them life-changing opportunities to experience these subjects as a thrilling, challenging competition. The Newport News nonprofit organization recognizes that developing the future engineering workforce requires a culture shift that makes engineering “cool” again.

Community Knights, Inc. is committed to identifying the needs of small local nonprofit and public school organizations as well as the populations they serve and finding innovative ways to help them meet these needs collaboratively. The nonprofit organization is also dedicated to identifying service gaps for underserved populations within our community and, through the development of a nonprofit incubator, support and educate start up organizations to fill unmet needs within the Virginia Peninsula community.

The Peninsula STEM Gym is located at 11516 Jefferson Ave Unit #2, Newport News, VA 23601.

Those wishing to get involved with the Peninsula STEM Gym are invited to attend the first Open House to be held on Saturday, November 17, 2018 from 2pm to 6pm at the facility.

Community members wishing to contribute financially to the Peninsula STEM Gym are invited to sponsor the purchase of a chair. Task chairs will be grouped around workbenches lining one wall of the facility, providing a comfortable working environment for students to explore concepts in group problem-solving and teamwork. Sponsors of chairs will be invited to attach customized brass name plaques to their chairs at the inaugural open house of the STEM Gym on Saturday, November 17, 2018.

NewsletterBy Nate Laverdure

Newsletter: Triple Helix update – September 2018

Welcome back to school!  Here’s your Triple Helix Robotics newsletter for this month!

Inter-team outreach
This month Triple Helix continued a series of visits with two of our FRC competitors.  Blue Cheese, Team 1086, came to Newport News and visited our workshop where we discussed how we rapidly prototype robot mechanisms and build a consensus around a gameplay strategy.  The following weekend, Triple Helix traveled to meet The Zebracorns at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, NC.  The conversation with Team 900 centered around their cutting-edge software development efforts, their approach to outreach and team sustainability in North Carolina, and our approaches to strategic design and prototyping.  We’ve learned a ton about how these two great teams work and we’re looking forward to doing more of these visits in coming seasons.

Volunteer support needed for Rumble in the Roads 2018
This fall’s Rumble in the Roads will be the high-tech epicenter of the Hampton Roads when it arrives at Heritage High School in Newport News on Saturday, November 3.  There’s no event of it’s kind on the Virginia Peninsula– a meeting of 32 high school robotics teams from 3 states for a day of tough competition and high-energy learning.  Each alliance of winning teams in this annual offseason scrimmage have gone on to become powerful players in the next FIRST Robotics Competition season.

Now in its 5th year and expecting 1,500 participants, the Rumble in the Roads is a well-attended youth robotics competition that attracts a unique technical audience from the local community and is an excellent venue for recruiting the next generation of Hampton Roads STEM leaders.  The event is free and open to the public and we hope that everyone will come check out the competition!

We need your help to make the event great!  Please check out our volunteer application here:
https://www.rumbleintheroads.com/register/volunteer-application

Good luck to our new alumni!
A few months ago, Triple Helix graduated 10 stellar senior students.  As we move into the fall, we’d like to share our best wishes for these new alumni.  We know you’re equipped for the challenges you’ll soon be facing.  Always be iterating– as alum Aaron J put in his winning essay for the Indiana Robotics Invitational technical scholarship, “One of the most important life lessons that Triple Helix has taught me is to be patient in times of failures and how to approach or accept failure as a form of improvement.”  As you learned in your Triple Helix experience, it’s fun to work super hard and accomplish great things as a member of a team.  Good luck this year!

Thank you to sponsors DoD STEM and the Virginia AeroSpace Business Association
Several Triple Helix partners renewed their sponsorship of the team for the upcoming 2019 FRC season. We thank our mentors and friends at the SPAWAR Systems Center – Atlantic, and the DoD STEM funding organization, for their generous and continued support!  In addition, we would like to share our deep appreciation of the Virginia AeroSpace Business Association (VASBA) for increasing their level of support of Triple Helix for the upcoming season.

–
Nate Laverdure
Head coach, Triple Helix Robotics
President, Intentional Innovation Foundation

NewsletterBy Nate Laverdure

Newsletter: Triple Helix update – August 2018

It’s been an exciting month for Triple Helix Robotics!  Here’s some of the big things that have happened in July:

Indiana Robotics Invitational
Triple Helix traveled to Indianapolis to compete in the IRI, a prestigious and competitive post-season (unofficial) competition for the top teams in the FIRST Robotics Competition. This event is the Pro Bowl of FRC. Competing there among legendary teams was an eye-opening experience for Triple Helix students and mentors, and we’ve been thoroughly inspired to take our program to the next level.  Check out the recap video for the event by IndianaFIRST:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BEqo8uGplo

Inter-team outreach
The team met up with our competitor Blue Cheese, FRC team 1086, at their workshop in Ashland, VA. There, we learned all about their team’s processes: working out of a sponsor’s facility, designing robot parts for outside manufacture, helping to lead the National Advocacy Conference and other political activism, winning a FIRST Championship, and more! This visit was one in a series: this month we’ll host Blue Cheese at our workshop, and we’ll also travel to The Zebracorns at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, NC.

YMCA STEM fair
Recently graduated seniors, alumni, and former mentors came together to participate in the YMCA STEM fair at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton. YMCA summer camp counselor and recent Triple Helix graduate Rachel B. stated: “My campers and my co workers absolutely LOVED the robot and the team. You guys did an amazing job representing the team at the YMCA STEM fair and I am super happy and proud! Thank you so much again!”

Thank you to Booz Allen Hamilton
Booz Allen has renewed their sponsorship of the team for the upcoming 2019 FRC season. Thank you for your generous and continued support!

–
Nate Laverdure
Head coach, Triple Helix Robotics
President, Intentional Innovation Foundation

AdministrativeBy Triple Helix

2018 IRI application

Triple Helix students proudly submitted the following application to the 2018 Indiana Robotics Invitational, a competitive and prestigious annual offseason FRC tournament in the Indianapolis area.

Our application was accepted, and Triple Helix competed at the event with a 2-7-0 record and a final ranking of 62 of 70 teams.

What competitions did you attend in 2018?

What was your best performance this year?

  • Northern Virginia: 5th seed, 1st pick of alliance 2, Quarterfinalist
  • Hampton Roads: 5th seed, 1st pick of alliance 1, Semifinalist, Chairman’s Award
  • District Championships: 19th seed, 1st pick of alliance 3, Quarterfinalist

Based on statistics, the team’s best performance was at the Hampton Roads district event. We were ranked fifth after qualification matches, our team was the first pick of the first seeded alliance, and we were semi-finalists at the event. However, based on our individual robot performance, our best event was the Chesapeake District Championship. At this event, we were able to consistently place cubes on the scale in autonomous and completed double climbs with compatible robots.

Are there any special circumstances we need to know about?

Our strategy for the FIRST Power Up game has evolved throughout the competition season. Initially, our end game strategy was to deploy 2 lifting mechanisms for other robots to drive up on. After the end of the second district event we attended, the team decided that it would be a better strategy to deploy a self climbing mechanism that gave enough space for another robot to climb. This plan was successfully executed at the Chesapeake district championship multiple times. The team is proud to qualify for World Championship for the 5th time in a row this year. But unfortunately, the team finances could not support our attendance this year.

Link to a team video, if you would like to share one.

Instructional videos, MechanicalBy Triple Helix

2363 builds a drivetrain

When we recruit new students, one of our favorite lines is, “Nobody who joins the team knows how to build a robot. We’ll teach you.” As an established team, we go to competitions and see younger teams, some of whom don’t have engineering mentors, struggling to learn lessons we have learned the hard way. We see our role in growing FRC as helping those struggling teams become better more quickly, so they remain inspired, and don’t fold.

Last fall our students came up with the idea of producing a series of instructional videos. These would teach our incoming rookies the skills they would need to be productive robot builders. We see this video series, and the ones which will follow, as a tool which can help educate inexperienced students on our own team as well as other teams across FRC.

Video series

Chief Delphi post

AwardsBy Triple Helix

Chairman’s Award video 2018

This video was provided to judges as part of our submission for the 2018 Chairman’s Award.  Triple Helix received the Chairman’s Award at the FIRST Chesapeake District – Hampton Roads event at Churchland High School in Portsmouth.  Here’s what the judges had to say about our team:

The Chairman’s Award is the most prestigious award in FIRST. It honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST. The Chairman’s Award is presented to the team judged to have the most significant, measurable impact on its partnership among its participants and community over a sustained period, not just a single build season. The winners will demonstrate progress towards FIRST’s mission of transforming our culture. The recipient team will be invited to the District Championship where it will compete for the Chairman’s Award against other winners from other qualifying events and compete with their robot.

This team’s effort to spread the word about FIRST and STEM stretched from Richmond to Virginia Beach and dozens of locations in between. They have held events at local universities, a military base, other federal facilities, a tourist attraction, a professional association, museums, and even a public garden. This team helped stand up new FRC teams, supported rookie teams, helped revitalize an existing team, mentored additional teams, and held a popular off-season event. They also support an FTC team, and mentor and support four FLL teams, pulling triple duty for their work with FIRST. Hosting a round-table and summer camp, participating in a variety of STEM events, giving presentations to STEM-related organizations, and leveraging social media to reach a broader audience, clearly inspiring today’s youth to embrace science, technology, engineering, and math is embedded deep within this team’s DNA.

Video