VEX Robotics Community Introductions

General Discussions
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Hi everyone, I’m Maree from the land down under! Australia! I live in a regional area, about 3hrs north of Melbourne.
I have been involved in VEX Robotics since 2016, we started with a team of 4 students, and one VRC kit ( old old model now! with vex net kets! No smart devices - besides my students). I had no programming or robotics knowledge, but knew if I was a kid I would love it. So that was and still is my motivation to learn and try new things. The following year we expanded to three teams, and to our absolute surprise won the excellence award at the Australian Nationals and earnt a place to compete at the 2018 VEX Worlds!!
The students that came back from that amazing experience, became mentors in our program and mentors the new junior ( we now had 3 IQ teams and 2 VRC). Through their experiences at worlds, they shared so much knowledge and insight as well as inspiration, so much so, one of our junior teams went onto win the Excellence Award at Nationals - so another trip to VEX Worlds. And our senior students/mentors came across with us and were volunteers at Worlds - from judging to referee. totally amazing experience.
For a regional area to have so much success, our VEX Robotics program gained quite a bit of PR and notoriety, many of our new enrolments saying they were applying to our school due to our robotics program. Given that this was only extra curricula and very limited budget, we expanded into the mainstream classrooms. Our VEX Robotics program now involves both mainstream robotics learning in year 7 (compulsory 10 week units for all), year 8 and 9 robotics electives, and our extra curricula program ( 5 teams maximum), for all year levels that concentrates on the REC Foundation Competition program - both IQ and VRC.
I manage the Extra Curricula program and my colleagues teach the mainstream curric program, and we all support each other.

Unfortunately with COVID and severe quarantine restrictions has seen our extra curric program mothballed for the last 2 years, That said we are excited and ready to go for season 2022-2023 and looking forward to the new game release in the next couple of weeks. :slight_smile:

We also have a group that work outside of the school environment and work within the community - creating community engagement in STEM and VEX Robotics. We gained some funding form Ford Australia ( a strong supporter of VEX and Girlpowered initiatives here at our Nationals) to create a “Girls in Engineering Program” using the VEX Workcell. So this has been my latest project.

As much as my story has involved taking teams to VEX worlds, I have mainly considered myself as a “project manager” - I have never actually built or coded a robot!! I manage to have a great team around me and it forces our students to problem solve knowing I don’t do this. ***** REMEMBER I started prior to STEM labs - I think the Stem labs and certifications have been the Game Changers in STEM Education.***

So this new project with the VEX Workcell I have decided to challenge myself and finally have a go and building and programming!! I have to step up at some stage and the workcell is such a great way to learn, and I have found the certification process has been great, with Lauren’s how too videos has made me feel like a pro!!
Still a long way to go, (i’m up to lab 6 now) but I think I found my happy place playing with this over the school holidays!

If anyone wants to know more about anything I’ve mentioned - but my key learning with VEX is you can have success without you knowing programming or building - let the students run with it!
Twitter is my fav social media go to, learnt so much and was where I first saw VEX all those years ago - @mareetimms
What a ride it’s been… and I’m not ready to get off yet!

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67

Just followed you on twitter. :grinning: :+1:

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68

Hi Stephen, I’m here down south of the border in Victoria! Let 's go Aussies! :grinning:

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Hi Leslie, we met at the 2019 VEX World’s - you and the gorgeous Taunja (so sad on her passing) looked after us aussies so well. So happy to connect with you on here.

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70

Oh wow, you work at Google!! How cool is that!

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100% agree the certifications are great! So useful.

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THANKS! I will follow you as well! I’m going to my first Worlds this year in Dallas! Will you be there??

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This is such great advice @Maree_Timms Thank you so much for sharing! I love this

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Unfortunately no, not this year. :frowning:
Would have loved to have seen the excitement of the new host city of Dallas.
You will love it!! It’s such an awesome experience. Mind blowing in so many ways! The kids, the people, the noise, the lights, just everything. so many fond memories - and a real adventure for us as we have to travel to the other side of the world. So special.

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75

I am going to playing around a lot with my Workcell over the summer, so let me know what you had issues with/ successes. Love to share.

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76

Hi Lori,
I have been in communication with @Lauren_Harter who has been awesome for extra support - her videos in the VEX workcell Certification have been my go to. I started out just doing the STEM Labs - then I decided I should look at the VEX Certification and do tat as I went along and came across Lauren’s videos, no problems ever since.
The very first issue I had was that I have the joints in the arm too tight. I am so used to telling kids to make sure they put the nuts on tight LOL… I forgot that these ones need to be a lit loose for movement!! I was so confused as to why it wasn’t working, remastered the arm so many times with no luck. Then while watching Laurens video I noticed how easily she moved the arm and often it would just flop down… realised mine did not do this. It was my lightbulb moment and also thinking I’m such a doofus… hahahahaaaa. Have had very little problems since.
Mastering the arm - if the values are slightly out and the joint fails and os only out by 100 , then instead of taking the arm joint off, I have just taken out the jig, moved the arm about manually, remastered and I have found it goes back in and passes. I I think having plastic gears up again small metal ones creates very small movements/adjustments so it goes out of alignments and a quick “jiggle” fixes it. I think… and it works. :slight_smile: Feel free to yell out any time.

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77

Great tips @Maree_Timms thanks! :slight_smile:

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Hi everyone!
My name is Matt Goodwin, and I am a recent graduate of Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, PA. I studied Engineering with a concentration on Mechanical, and have just recently started full time as an Education Mechanical Engineer with VEX Robotics. During my time at Robert Morris, I worked in the tutoring department helping with mostly all math courses (we don’t talk about linear algebra), as well as all engineering and technology courses meaning I am well versed in offering different perspectives towards difficult subjects. I was introduced to working with VEX products in the summer of 2021, when I began developing alternate arm configurations for the V5 Workcell. I am excited to start and offer information to the best of my abilities!

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Awesome Matt! So glad to have you! I know what you mean about linear algebra… I felt that way about real analysis… haha. Excited to have your engineering perspective in PD+! :slight_smile:

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80

Hi Everyone!

I am a high school teacher in Surrey, British Columbia.

I had the pleasure of teaching STEM (robotics, math, and science) at the middle school level for 15 years.

After changing schools a few years ago I have been slowly building interest in robotics at my school, while continuing to teach junior science, and most levels of math. while weathering the impacts of COVID.

This semester I had my first grade 9 Robotics and Electronics class of 17 and next year I get to teach grade 10 Robotics and Electronics while I will have a chance to support an initial program at our local middle school.

I am self-taught in Robotics and Electronics but I have a BA in Geography, 1 year professional certification, and a MEd with a leadership focus.

I am looking forward to exploring this platform to improve my practice for my students.

Cheers,
Matt

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Welcome Matt! Happy to have you here. Can’t wait to hear how your new program starts out next year.

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Hi @Matt_Bacon Welcome! I look forward to working and learning with you here in our community.

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Hello everyone! My name is Ling Zhang and I am an educational contractor for VEX Robotics.

With an Electrical Engineering background, I have been a computer science teacher for the past 7 years, teaching Computer Science and Virtual Robotics classes to Grade 3-10 students in both schools’ classrooms and educational institutions.

I have taught a range of computer science classes from Scratch, Micro:bit, Raspberry Pi to Python, Java, Cyber Robotics, and VEXCode VR. I love to learn new technologies, design curriculums, and tailor the content to engage students of different levels.

To inspire students’ interest in STEM, I also coach them to participate in various computing challenges, such as Canadian Computing Competition (CCC), USA Computing Olympiad(USACO), and the Astro Pi Mission Space Lab.

I’m very excited to join this professional community. And I am looking forward to sharing ideas, and learning from others’ experiences!

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Welcome @Ling_Zhang! So excited for you to join us :slight_smile:

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Welcome @Ling_Zhang Looking forward to your contributions!