One of the Trane employees showing us how the system works

We invited some of our mentee teams to tour a building automation company called TRANE Industries. During the tour, we learned how TRANE manufactures the printed circuit boards used in their building control systems. We got to see the machines they use to place the components onto the board as well as the machine that solders the parts onto it. In their testing room, they test new software and maintain old versions of their products so they are able to help their customers if a product breaks. Finally, we received a demonstration of their control systems in which they showed us how all the sensors, lights, doors, and HVAC systems work in conjunction with each other in a building. After touring their company, we told the employees at TRANE about FIRST and youth robotics as well as demonstrated our robot’s capabilities. They had the opportunity to drive our robot and many of them asked questions about it and our engineering notebook. Some of them were interested in getting involved so we encouraged them to volunteer at tournaments. We had lunch with some of the engineers at TRANE and they gave us lots of good advice for our future careers. The event was really fun and we would love to go back and learn more.

Talking with the manufacturing companies and engineers at the conference

This event was a parts show for many manufacturing companies. Some of these manufacturing companies made parts such as custom circuit boards by woodcutting, laser cutting, and more. By going around and talking to many different engineers, we were able to learn a lot about different engineers. We learned about the processes that it takes to make different parts. It was very interesting to learn about all of the places that the various companies came from.

Taking a picture with the CSI engineers (left) and showing the CSI employees how to drive the robot (left)

Our team went to tour and demo the company Cardiovascular Systems Inc. (CSI). Three of the employees there gave us a tour of their manufacturing facilities. CSI primarily makes catheter controllers which are used in surgeries to remove calcified blockages in arteries. The head of the catheter is diamond coated and spins quickly which wears down the organic material blocking the artery. The employees explained the different parts of the tool and how they are made. We saw the catheter wire being woven and the head being soldered onto the tip. They even showed us the clean room where the final products are packaged and sterilized. Where there our team also presented tpo the engineers about the Freight Frenzy game, FIRST robotics, and our robot. We shared this so they had context for the design and purpose of our robot. The engineers were able to drive the robot around to see how it collects the Freight and moves with the triangular Kiwi Drivetrain. Many of them really enjoyed this and we gave them robot driver’s licenses for their achievement. We had a great time and our team members greatly appreciated seeing this part of the engineering field.

We presented to the employees of the company, Bind Benefits, and demonstrated our robot to the people there.

First, we gave them a presentation about youth robotics and the Freight Frenzy game. We explained how our robot works and detailed the programming specifically since we talked specifically with the engineers focusing on Bind’s website and app. We invited the engineers there to drive the robot and we answered their questions about youth robotics. We then received a tour of the company’s facilities and talked with some of the engineers at the demo. Since Bind is mostly focused on software we went more in-depth on the programming and computer vision portions of our robot when speaking with them. They were very nice and it was interesting to see the way that the company ran. Many of the employees work in Bulgaria so many of the attendees watched our presentation virtually.

Two of our members participated in a prosthetics workshop hosted by the company Form5 from Ohio. Our members were there to learn about the creation process of prosthetics. We got the chance to share what FIRST is and educate the volunteers on what we do as a robotics team. This workshop was spread across 3 days. On the first day, we learned about different limb injuries, the many kinds of prosthetics, and the history of prosthetics. The next 2 days were spent designing and prototyping a custom limb. Throughout the workshop we learned the process of creating a prosthetic limb for a client, rigging the movement of prosthetic parts, and advanced CAD techniques. It was really fun being able to work with other students from the FIRST community and we plan to reach out to Form5 to learn more about Fusion 360. 

One of the Algae Growth Labs we visited.

After meeting some representatives of the U of M biosystems lab, we took a tour of their facility and learned about various projects they were working on. A majority of the research we saw was about algae relating to plastics. One scientist showed us algae designed to digest plastic and convert it into other, more useful materials while another scientist showed us algae that produces environmentally friendly plastic. We also saw some research into natural plant-grown gasses and were able to tour each one of these facilities. Some of our members who were more interested in these subjects got tons of very useful information from this visit.

At the White Bear High School construction site, the engineers of Kraus-Anderson taught us about how they organize the construction of a building. We learned that they often order custom parts. Many of the custom parts in this build are used for both structural and aesthetic reasons. They also taught us about their imaging systems which utilize a laser, camera, and drone to help layout the plans for buildings. The information from these devices can even be put into a CAD to help with planning. They showed us how they plan out everything about a building before starting to construct it which is a strategy we are going to use next season. We learned a lot from our tour and discovered many similarities between commercial construction and the FTC build season. For example, we both go through full designs before commencing with the physical construction process. Kraus-Anderson also CADs out their buildings in a similar way to how we use Fusion to CAD our robot. The tour was very interesting and we hope to be able to see the school again once they’ve finished it.

Our team spoke to the Kraus-Anderson engineers about our previous two seasons. We showed them a video of our robot and explained the FTC program. We told them about our various uses of CAD and custom parts. We also explained the FTC game to them and described how we work through the season to build the robot.

Demo

At this event, we went to Herold Precision Metals (HPM) to present about FIRST and demo our robot to several engineers that work there. At the beginning of the demo, we started off by presenting about our team and about the season, what FIRST is, how it works, and how to help in the FTC community. After the presentation, we demoed our robot to the engineers. We showed them how the robot works, how it completes missions, custom parts on our robot, and our EN documentation. They seemed very interested in FIRST and asked many questions about it and our robot.

Tour

After our team demoed to HPM engineers we got a tour of their facilities. We got to see many of their advanced pieces of equipment in action like a high-powered laser cutter and a metal shaping machine. It was very interesting to see one aspect of STEM in the professional world, and our team really enjoyed touring HPM.

 Recently, we have been looking for sponsors whenever we get the chance. One of those sponsors is Promet Optics, who sponsored us when we were in FLL. They create high-end optical sensors, and we demoed to 11 of their engineers. We went to their company to tell them about FTC, and how it’s different from FLL. We showed them our robot and told them about our sub-systems. They asked about what the hardest part of our robot and how certain systems worked. When we were if FLL, it was fun to demo there, and now demo-ing FTC is still fun.