Subject: The Montgomery County
Public Schools' Robotics Team Kicks Off Season on January 7, 2006
The Montgomery County Public Schools’ Robotics program (Team 401), a unique educational collaboration between Montgomery County Public Schools and the Virginia Tech School of Education, will kickoff its season on Saturday, January 7, 2006, at 10:00 a.m. Students will view the live telecast in a classroom arranged by the School of Education in Torgersen Hall at Virginia Tech. Team 401 brings together high school students and university engineering students to investigate the math, science and engineering principles behind the design and fabrication of a semi-autonomous robot to be entered in an international competition. While Team 401 is viewing the telecast, a former teacher and "assistant coach" for the team, Charlie Odum, will be in Richmond picking up the "kit of parts" distributed by the FIRST organization (timed to coincide with the announcement of the game rules). The kit is a fantastic collection of specialized and raw materials (paid for by the School of Education at Virginia Tech) to be used to create a robot that will participate in the competition on March 2-4, 2006 in Richmond.
The kickoff can be viewed live this Saturday, January 7, 2006, via NASA Broadcast TV or NASA Webcast. Members of the public with high-speed Internet can view the kick-off at http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2006_kickoff.php. The kickoff marks the exact moment when 1,000 teams, similar to the Montgomery County team, all around the World (US, Canada, UK, Israel, Brazil, etc.) find out what the robots will have to do and about the rules and the playing field.
As students in the district-wide robotics class, the high school team members have worked through a series of preparatory lessons all through the fall. Over the course of one school year, students explore the field of robotics as a real-world discipline in which the fundamentals learned during one's secondary education are put to practical use. Using the applied skills, students construct various robot prototypes throughout the semester, as well as a human-sized robot designed to execute tasks critical to winning the FIRST Robotics Competition, both regionally and nationally, thus the name "Team 401." Team 401 is one of 900+ teams participating in the FIRST Robotics project. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) seeks to inspire in high school students an interest in math, science, and technology and a lasting desire to effect positive change in their world.
High school students participating in this course may obtain elective credits in math, science and vocational education while college students enrolled in the mentorship course earn an elective credit in their engineering field. Throughout the applications in this course, high school students experience hands-on problem solving activities that not only introduce them to engineering but also prepare them for fields in math, science and technology. College students participating in this course improve their non-technical skills through their opportunities for mentorship and leadership. All students benefit from their participation in collaborative problem solving and teamwork.
Students interested in participating next year should contact their guidance
office to enroll for next year. The
Robotics team benefits from a number of corporate sponsors (NanoCom, Automation
Creations, Reynolds Architects, Moog, Luna, and others).
Area school districts wishing to start their own team should contact Michael
Collver at (540) 951-5706, Ext. 193. Team 401 would be thrilled to mentor
a rookie team.
Members of the public are welcome to come by and may check Team 401 out on the
web at www.team401.org