"Hello, I am an eighth grader named Guy Beaudoin. I am on my
school's FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and
Technology) robotics team. For those of you who don't know, FIRST
is an organization that helps kids learn engineering and
programming in an environment where teamwork and gracious
professionalism are required. On the 14th of August we went to a
competition in Redmond. It was at the Microsoft conference center
and it was about the possibility of creating a space elevator. A
space elevator is a very large satellite being launched into space
and a tether being lowered down to a platform in the ocean. The
competition was about building a robot and having it climb up 16
feet of ribbon. Sounds easy, right? Not if you have to build it
out of Lego parts. Even though we had already lost (getting no
points in any of the three rounds), the judges let us do one last
run up the ribbon, and our robot finally worked. When it reached
the top carrying four half pound weights everybody in the room was
ecstatic. We would have gotten the highest score in our category,
and the second highest score of the day if it had been part of our
first three runs. Even though we didn't win we learned a lot and
participating in this will help us in the FIRST competition. I
think that FIRST is an amazing organization and should be an after
school program everywhere in the U.S. (or maybe even an in school
robotics class). It is a fun and interesting way to learn about
robotics and is suited to every age level. There is FIRST Robotics
Competition and FIRST Tech Challenge for high school, FIRST Lego
League for Intermediate and Middle School, and Jr. FIRST Lego
League for kindergarten through third grade. They do cost money
for schools, but using donations or the school Kiwanis, they can
easily start one up."
Guy Beaudoin
Here is our video of our 4th run carrying two pounds up the 15 foot ribbon. I got too excited when it reached the top and forgot I was filming. We scored 215 points which would have qualified us for the finals. The only problem was that we did it in the 4th run and they only counted the first 3 runs. Oh well, there is always next year!
This is a Video of the Space Elevator project. We entered a competition about a Space Elevator, where you have to climb a piece of Caution Tape while carrying weights. The Caution Tape is 16 feet off the ground. This is our Robot!