5,300 miles away from the Beijing Olympic Games, the Earl's Garage Botball Team captured a different kind of gold medal. Actually, two of them.
Preparing to play the game called, "Botball" requires team work and mental skill of olympic proportions. For ten weeks, kids from Kona to Honoka`a, ranging in age from 11 to 17, gathered at Earl's Garage to prepare for the Hawai`i Regional Botball tournament. Preparations consisted of designing, building, programming, and testing two robots.
Each year the Botball game scenario and scoring objectives change. This year's game scenarios was a space station eminently threatened by a solar flare and occupied by crew members and plants that must be saved to score points. The game field was just two 4' x 8' tables that are connected together by a narrow 7" board. Teams learned the game at the same time, were given the same length of time to prepare for the game and are supplied with the same kit of parts to build their robots.
Imagine first, the discussion you'd have to figure out how you, your sisters, your brothers, aunties, uncles, neighbors ... are all going to ride all the rides at Disneyland ... in just 3 hours. That's the magnitude of the first hurdle teams face: civilly discussing and agreeing on a game strategy that will shape their mechanical design.
Along the way, the team must document their process. What challenges did they identify? Solutions? How did they organize themselves? As they build their robot they must document their discoveries. What works? What could be different?
It takes team work to win. Out of the 36 teams entered in the tournament, the Earl's Garage Botball Team worked together to win first place in documentation. They also were awarded perfect scores for their mechanical design documentation and for their oral presentation.
The Earl's Garage Botball Team received another first place award after the tournament for their entry in the Botball SolidWorks CAD Contest. The team won by demonstrating their mastery of SolidWorks which was used to reconstruct and animate their robots in 3D. SolidWorks is a three dimensional (3D), solid modeling, computer aided design (CAD) software, used by professional design engineers. You can view the winning entry online at www.tutushouse.org/EarlsGarageWeb/EG_videos.htm
Learning how to reset the time on the microwave after a power outage suddenly seems possible knowing that kids can learn so much.
Earl's Garage is located in Waimea on Hawai`i island. Kids at Earl's Garage are now turning their attention to preparations for their 6th Annual Halloween Haunted House, FRIGHT SHOP. Kids ages 7 - 18 are invited to participate in building the mechanized surprises that are the signature feature of the Earl's Garage Fright Shop. Earl's Garage provides hands-on minds-on activities based in science, technology and creativity. For more information, call Earl's Garage at 885-6777, Monday - Friday.
Earl's Garage is one of eleven projects operated by the nonprofit organization Friends of the Future. Donations to support Earl's Garage or Friends of the Future are welcomed and may be tax deductible.
