Robotics and Engineering Resources

From 2005 to 2009, I was the advisor to the robotics club, which participates in FIRST's FRC events.

Robotics Links

• The main page for F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)
• Team #1277 is our team's student designed home page
• Our Mailing Lists all team members should subscribe to Announce and Discuss. Adult members should subscribe to Mentors and programers should subscribe to Coders. Archives are accessible from this site. The lists are managed using Mailman and you can modify your own subscription status.
• Our entry on the FIRSTwiki site: 1277 - FIRSTwiki
• FIRST's Team Information Mangement System (TIMS) page
• The Competition Manual for the 2007 contest
• The schematics for constructing the field and bumpers for the 2007 contest
• NEMO Resources: a site dedicated to Non-Engineer Mentor resources for the FIRST competition.
• Chief DelphiPontiac Central High School's forum site is the go-to place for discussions of the FIRST contests
• NASA has a variety of robotics related educational programs and accept Applications for FIRST sponsorship
• The chief CAD (Computer Aided Design) software used in the FIRST contest is Autodesk
• A key supplier of materials for FIRST is Innovation First
• The Mini-Robot Controler
• Students who will be Juniors or Seniors in the fall can attend WPI Frontiers this July 8-20 (2007) for a residential, project based program in: robotics, physics, aerospace engineering, computer science, biology and biotechnology, electrical and computer engineering, interactive media and game development, mechanical engineering, chemistry and mathematics. There are also sundry social activities, field trips. Students pick a sci/eng major and also choose a communications/humanities & arts workshop. Tuition is $2100. FIRST participants can apply for a $500 scholarship (see me for info). Applications for both the 2007 program and the scholarship are due postmarked by May 31.

Engineering & Design Links

• MIT's 2.70 mechanical engineering design class (now 2.007) was the inspiration for the F.I.R.S.T. contest. MIT's opencourseware has a number of resources from that class available:
  • The 2.007 Design Handbook
  • PDF slides of the 2.007 Design Lectures overheads
  • Excell based Spreadsheets
  • An index of Software Design Tools
• Tufts University has a program called the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach
• UMass Lowell's College of Engineering sponsors Designcamp, a collection of programs for students who were in grades 5-11 during the prior school year. 2007's sessions include "Electronic Bling" and "Electronics and Music" for 8th-10th graders (1 week each, $380 registration due June 22, 2007), and "DC High Tech Product Design" and "DC High Tech Electronics" (2 weeks each, $600 registration due April 16, 2007) New! 6/12/2007
• Robot Magazine has an article listing various Robotics Summer Camps throughout the country for students of varying K-12 age ranges. New! 6/13/2007
• TryEngineering.org seeks to educate pre-college students about engineering.
• The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has a set of Student Resources
• The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has their own K-12 resource pages.
• The Society of Women Engineers (SWE)'s K-12 Resources page.