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Avum Sponsored 957 SWARM Goes To 2018 FRC World Championships!
May 1, 2018For the last 4 years, Avum has continued their support of student engineers by sponsoring high school robotics in the FIRST Robotics Competition (http://www.usfirst.org). FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 and the FIRST Robotics Competition began in 1992. The 2018 FRC season had over 3600 active teams from 28 countries around the world. In the FRC, teams compete with 2 other teams in an alliance of 3 teams versus another 3 team alliance.
The FRC game for the 2018 season was called POWER UP and was video game themed. The goal for the season was to take "power cubes", milk crates in a zippered nylon skin, and place them on 1 of 3 balance scales on the field. There were two lower ones on the ends of the field and a tall one at mid field. Teams gained points by tipping the scale to their side and then were awarded a point per second while they maintained the balance in their favor. Teams could get an extra 30 points per robot by having the robot climb at least 1 foot off of the floor using a bar on the tall middle scale. Teams could also push the cubes through portals in the end of the field and stack them in their vault for 5 points a cube to enable "power ups" such as taking control of a balance, doubling balance scoring or getting a free climb for the team.
In the FRC competition, every team around the world finds out what the new game is at 7AM PST on the first Saturday in January during the game reveal. The teams then have 6 weeks to design and build a 120 pound robot for competition to meet the new challenge for the year. After the 6 weeks passes, the teams place their robot in a giant plastic bag and lock it with a non-removable tag.
957 SWARM at the PNW Championships
Team 957 SWARM (South and West Albany Robotic Manics) is a high school robotics team competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition. It is a joint team for both the South Albany and West Albany Oregon high schools as well as the Oregon Connections Academy online school system. The team has actively been competing since 2002. In 2018 the team had 21 students with 8 volunteer mentors and provides the program for free to students. All funding is raised by the team from sponsors and activities during the year. Avum engineer, Robin Hobbensiefken, has served as a team mentor for software and electrical parts of the team over the last 4 years. At the end of the 2017 season, he stepped into the role of the Lead Mentor for SWARM.
2018 was an amazing year for the team. They designed, assembled and programmed a very capable robot. The team named the robot Otis in recognition of Elisha Otis who invented the modern safety elevator. In the Pacific NorthWest division, SWARM competes at two district competitions. SWARM placed 2nd in round-robin qualifying play at both district events versus 37 teams at their Wilsonville event and versus 36 teams at the Lake Oswego district event. This is higher than the team has ever qualified at an event. At both events, the SWARM Alliance lost in the finals.
Judges Award and Finalist Award from Wilsonville
At the Wilsonville event, the team won the prestigious "Judges Award" for their detailed approach to strategy, game playing and programming skills. After the first event, SWARM was ranked 10th in the PNW out of 154 high school teams. In Lake Oswego, the team won the Motorola Solutions Quality Award celebrating machine robustness in concept and fabrication. Due to the awards and performance, after the Lake Oswego event, SWARM ended up ranked 9th in the PNW.
Otis climbs at PNW Championships with Mean Machine
Based on their performance in the district events, SWARM was invited to the PNW Championships where they ended up ranked 19th of 64 teams at the event. Based on overall season performance, SWARM ended up ranked 15th in the Pacific NorthWest out of 154 teams and qualified for the World Championships in Houston, TX.
The SWARM alliance from World Championships
At the FRC World Championships, SWARM competed in the Hopper division against 67 other teams from around the world. There were a total of 6 divisions and 405 teams in those divisions competing in Houston. At the end of round robin qualifiers, SWARM ranked 17th of 68 teams. At World Championships, alliance captains choose 3 other teams for at total of 4 teams per alliance so there is an alternate for each alliance. Any of the 3 teams can be used. SWARM was chosen to be on the number 3 alliance with BumbleB from Israel, Ratchet Rockers from Missouri and Walton Robotics from Georgia. The SWARM alliance won 2 out of 3 matches in the quarterfinals. They won 2 straight matches in the semi finals. In the finals their alliance was beaten 2 straight matches by the alliance that went on to play in the Einstein field rounds and won the World Championships in Houston.
SWARM with World Championship division finalist medals
The 2018 season was an incredible year for SWARM. The students and mentors all learned a ton and had a lot of fun. The team would not be able to do what they do without the support of their incredibly generous sponsors like Avum.
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Avum Sponsors the FIRST LEGO League!
October 21, 2013For the last 4 years, Avum has proudly sponsored teams of budding engineers in the FIRST LEGO League. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 and the LEGO competition was started in 1998. The 2013 FIRST LEGO season will have over 200,000 competitors in 70 countries.
Avum provides sponsorship by helping the team with necessary supplies such as LEGO Robotics kits and team shirts as well as having one of our engineers, Robin Hobbensiefken, volunteer as a coach and mentor for the team. Through this sponsorship, Avum has helped to inspire many children to have an interest in science, technology and engineering. This experience provides the young engineers with practical experience that they can use in school and in their future careers.
The cornerstones of the FLL are to encourage children to learn about science and technology with a primary focus on having strong core values and showing gracious professionalism. The core values emphasized in the competition include such beliefs as:
We honor the spirit of friendly competition
What we discover is more important than what we win
We share our experiences with others
We have fun!
Lego Team
The FLL is an annual contest with regional competitions in the first and second week of December. Teams generally begin work on their project around the time school starts in the fall. Students must be in the age range of 9 – 14 and teams consist of 3 to 10 members. Each year the project has a primary theme such as human health (Body Forward), food safety (Food Factor) or helping the elderly (Senior Solutions). LEGO engineers have around 10 weeks to prepare themselves for competition which consists of 3 main parts:
A research project presentation
A presentation on core values including a teamwork exercise
The robot game competition
Each season, the engineers research a topic and design an innovative solution. For the Senior Solutions season, the LEGO Whippersnappers, took top honors at the First LEGO League (FLL) robotics regional championships held December 1st at Memorial Middle School in Albany, OR. The team won both the Robot Performance Award and the Director’s Award, which is presented to the team that receives top scores in four areas: robot performance, robot design/programming, research project presentation, and team work. The Whippersnappers designed a personal medication dispenser for in-home use by seniors, especially those experiencing the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
In 2013, the contest is focused on natural disasters and is titled “Nature’s Fury”. Avum has a team of four members this year all of whom are returning from past teams. Three of this season’s engineers are returning Whippersnappers. The 4th member is returning after being on the team 3 years ago when they were the Central LEGO Tigers. This season, the team is researching flooding and is specifically focused on working to develop a way to help the deaf community in dealing with natural disasters.
Read MoreAvum’s Robotics Team WHAT?: Back For Another Year of LEGO Carnage
December 12, 2014LEGO Robotic Team
For yet another year, Avum has sponsored a LEGO robotics team, who, like last year, call themselves team WHAT? Each year, along with competing in a robot game with a pre-programmed robot, the team has to create a research project. Like last year, when the team researched ways to help deaf people during emergencies, the team’s research project fits well with their name; this year, the topic is education, and the team is finding ways to help improve foreign language learning.
The team studied benefits and impacts of foreign language learning and discovered that learning second languages can help your cognitive health, and delay mental diseases like dementia and alzheimer’s. Also, knowledge of a second language helps students do better in other subjects, like math. Moreover, the team discovered that people are far more likely to retain a knowledge of a language and become fluent if they start learning at a young age (ideally before eight). In fact, a large percentage of people who learn languages in high school forget them very soon after school gets out. Knowing other languages, such as Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic, is becoming extremely important in our globalized economy. Finally, if they speak Latin, they will be better at working with English, especially science, or, if their original language also has Latin roots, they will become better at working with that language.
The team concluded that second language learning should begin in elementary school, starting in kindergarten; Katy Allaback, a parent of a member of the team, and an English as a Second Language teacher, strongly agrees. This concept would need to be implemented by a simple four point plan:
Require all elementary school teachers to take classes certifying them capable of teaching second languages.
Require at least forty-five minutes of direct instruction of a foreign language to all students grades kindergarten through third and thirty minutes of direct instruction in a foreign language to all students grades four and five.
Require standardized testing, and interventions for all students grades kindergarten through fifth.
Continue to teach these languages through middle and high school to keep students “brushed up” on their knowledge.
By the time these students have graduated, they will be bilingual, well educated, and ready to make the United States have some of the highest levels of education in the world. They will be mentally healthier, and ready to live a successful and very productive life, as bilinguals. They will also be able to work better internationally, securing a good place in our globalized workforce.
Click here to view the entire research project.
Read More
Avum Sponsored FIRST LEGO League Team Develops EarTooth Technology
December 13, 2013Lego Team
Avum’s sponsored FIRST LEGO League team, WHAT?, had to create a solution for some of the difficulties faced during natural disasters. The team came up with a solution to help the deaf during an emergency. During a disaster, deaf people often don’t get the information they need in time, as the majority of people cannot communicate via sign language, and they cannot hear a disaster while they are asleep, or about it through the radio. Therefore, the team decided to use the Bluetooth sensor in cochlear implants to help alert the user, thus the name EarTooth.
EarToothAppThe way this system works is when an emergency alert is broadcast to a smartphone, the smartphone sends a Bluetooth signal to the cochlear implant, which then plays a repetitive, easily identifiable tone until they open their phone. The programming on the phone would be temporarily disabled, and they would see a simple, deaf-oriented program as shown. The home screen would inform the user of the type of disaster. Swiping right, they would see the information screen, which would inform them more about the disaster. The final screen would show what the user should do. In the model app, it shows a map for evacuation.
We believe our idea has the capacity to be useful to the deaf community during natural disasters and we hope it is useful to the readers of this.
Click here to read more information on EarTooth Technology
Read MoreAvum Sponsored 957 SWARM Goes To 2018 FRC World Championships!
May 1, 2018For the last 4 years, Avum has continued their support of student engineers by sponsoring high school robotics in the FIRST Robotics Competition (http://www.usfirst.org). FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 and the FIRST Robotics Competition began in 1992. The 2018 FRC season had over 3600 active teams from 28 countries around the world. In the FRC, teams compete with 2 other teams in an alliance of 3 teams versus another 3 team alliance.
The FRC game for the 2018 season was called POWER UP and was video game themed. The goal for the season was to take "power cubes", milk crates in a zippered nylon skin, and place them on 1 of 3 balance scales on the field. There were two lower ones on the ends of the field and a tall one at mid field. Teams gained points by tipping the scale to their side and then were awarded a point per second while they maintained the balance in their favor. Teams could get an extra 30 points per robot by having the robot climb at least 1 foot off of the floor using a bar on the tall middle scale. Teams could also push the cubes through portals in the end of the field and stack them in their vault for 5 points a cube to enable "power ups" such as taking control of a balance, doubling balance scoring or getting a free climb for the team.
In the FRC competition, every team around the world finds out what the new game is at 7AM PST on the first Saturday in January during the game reveal. The teams then have 6 weeks to design and build a 120 pound robot for competition to meet the new challenge for the year. After the 6 weeks passes, the teams place their robot in a giant plastic bag and lock it with a non-removable tag.
957 SWARM at the PNW Championships
Team 957 SWARM (South and West Albany Robotic Manics) is a high school robotics team competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition. It is a joint team for both the South Albany and West Albany Oregon high schools as well as the Oregon Connections Academy online school system. The team has actively been competing since 2002. In 2018 the team had 21 students with 8 volunteer mentors and provides the program for free to students. All funding is raised by the team from sponsors and activities during the year. Avum engineer, Robin Hobbensiefken, has served as a team mentor for software and electrical parts of the team over the last 4 years. At the end of the 2017 season, he stepped into the role of the Lead Mentor for SWARM.
2018 was an amazing year for the team. They designed, assembled and programmed a very capable robot. The team named the robot Otis in recognition of Elisha Otis who invented the modern safety elevator. In the Pacific NorthWest division, SWARM competes at two district competitions. SWARM placed 2nd in round-robin qualifying play at both district events versus 37 teams at their Wilsonville event and versus 36 teams at the Lake Oswego district event. This is higher than the team has ever qualified at an event. At both events, the SWARM Alliance lost in the finals.
Judges Award and Finalist Award from Wilsonville
At the Wilsonville event, the team won the prestigious "Judges Award" for their detailed approach to strategy, game playing and programming skills. After the first event, SWARM was ranked 10th in the PNW out of 154 high school teams. In Lake Oswego, the team won the Motorola Solutions Quality Award celebrating machine robustness in concept and fabrication. Due to the awards and performance, after the Lake Oswego event, SWARM ended up ranked 9th in the PNW.
Otis climbs at PNW Championships with Mean Machine
Based on their performance in the district events, SWARM was invited to the PNW Championships where they ended up ranked 19th of 64 teams at the event. Based on overall season performance, SWARM ended up ranked 15th in the Pacific NorthWest out of 154 teams and qualified for the World Championships in Houston, TX.
The SWARM alliance from World Championships
At the FRC World Championships, SWARM competed in the Hopper division against 67 other teams from around the world. There were a total of 6 divisions and 405 teams in those divisions competing in Houston. At the end of round robin qualifiers, SWARM ranked 17th of 68 teams. At World Championships, alliance captains choose 3 other teams for at total of 4 teams per alliance so there is an alternate for each alliance. Any of the 3 teams can be used. SWARM was chosen to be on the number 3 alliance with BumbleB from Israel, Ratchet Rockers from Missouri and Walton Robotics from Georgia. The SWARM alliance won 2 out of 3 matches in the quarterfinals. They won 2 straight matches in the semi finals. In the finals their alliance was beaten 2 straight matches by the alliance that went on to play in the Einstein field rounds and won the World Championships in Houston.
SWARM with World Championship division finalist medals
The 2018 season was an incredible year for SWARM. The students and mentors all learned a ton and had a lot of fun. The team would not be able to do what they do without the support of their incredibly generous sponsors like Avum.
Read MoreAvum’s Robotics Team WHAT?: Back For Another Year of LEGO Carnage
December 12, 2014LEGO Robotic Team
For yet another year, Avum has sponsored a LEGO robotics team, who, like last year, call themselves team WHAT? Each year, along with competing in a robot game with a pre-programmed robot, the team has to create a research project. Like last year, when the team researched ways to help deaf people during emergencies, the team’s research project fits well with their name; this year, the topic is education, and the team is finding ways to help improve foreign language learning.
The team studied benefits and impacts of foreign language learning and discovered that learning second languages can help your cognitive health, and delay mental diseases like dementia and alzheimer’s. Also, knowledge of a second language helps students do better in other subjects, like math. Moreover, the team discovered that people are far more likely to retain a knowledge of a language and become fluent if they start learning at a young age (ideally before eight). In fact, a large percentage of people who learn languages in high school forget them very soon after school gets out. Knowing other languages, such as Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic, is becoming extremely important in our globalized economy. Finally, if they speak Latin, they will be better at working with English, especially science, or, if their original language also has Latin roots, they will become better at working with that language.
The team concluded that second language learning should begin in elementary school, starting in kindergarten; Katy Allaback, a parent of a member of the team, and an English as a Second Language teacher, strongly agrees. This concept would need to be implemented by a simple four point plan:
Require all elementary school teachers to take classes certifying them capable of teaching second languages.
Require at least forty-five minutes of direct instruction of a foreign language to all students grades kindergarten through third and thirty minutes of direct instruction in a foreign language to all students grades four and five.
Require standardized testing, and interventions for all students grades kindergarten through fifth.
Continue to teach these languages through middle and high school to keep students “brushed up” on their knowledge.
By the time these students have graduated, they will be bilingual, well educated, and ready to make the United States have some of the highest levels of education in the world. They will be mentally healthier, and ready to live a successful and very productive life, as bilinguals. They will also be able to work better internationally, securing a good place in our globalized workforce.
Click here to view the entire research project.
Read MoreAvum Sponsored FIRST LEGO League Team Develops EarTooth Technology
December 13, 2013Lego Team
Avum’s sponsored FIRST LEGO League team, WHAT?, had to create a solution for some of the difficulties faced during natural disasters. The team came up with a solution to help the deaf during an emergency. During a disaster, deaf people often don’t get the information they need in time, as the majority of people cannot communicate via sign language, and they cannot hear a disaster while they are asleep, or about it through the radio. Therefore, the team decided to use the Bluetooth sensor in cochlear implants to help alert the user, thus the name EarTooth.
EarToothAppThe way this system works is when an emergency alert is broadcast to a smartphone, the smartphone sends a Bluetooth signal to the cochlear implant, which then plays a repetitive, easily identifiable tone until they open their phone. The programming on the phone would be temporarily disabled, and they would see a simple, deaf-oriented program as shown. The home screen would inform the user of the type of disaster. Swiping right, they would see the information screen, which would inform them more about the disaster. The final screen would show what the user should do. In the model app, it shows a map for evacuation.
We believe our idea has the capacity to be useful to the deaf community during natural disasters and we hope it is useful to the readers of this.
Click here to read more information on EarTooth Technology
Read MoreAvum Sponsors the FIRST LEGO League!
October 21, 2013For the last 4 years, Avum has proudly sponsored teams of budding engineers in the FIRST LEGO League. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 and the LEGO competition was started in 1998. The 2013 FIRST LEGO season will have over 200,000 competitors in 70 countries.
Avum provides sponsorship by helping the team with necessary supplies such as LEGO Robotics kits and team shirts as well as having one of our engineers, Robin Hobbensiefken, volunteer as a coach and mentor for the team. Through this sponsorship, Avum has helped to inspire many children to have an interest in science, technology and engineering. This experience provides the young engineers with practical experience that they can use in school and in their future careers.
The cornerstones of the FLL are to encourage children to learn about science and technology with a primary focus on having strong core values and showing gracious professionalism. The core values emphasized in the competition include such beliefs as:
We honor the spirit of friendly competition
What we discover is more important than what we win
We share our experiences with others
We have fun!
Lego Team
The FLL is an annual contest with regional competitions in the first and second week of December. Teams generally begin work on their project around the time school starts in the fall. Students must be in the age range of 9 – 14 and teams consist of 3 to 10 members. Each year the project has a primary theme such as human health (Body Forward), food safety (Food Factor) or helping the elderly (Senior Solutions). LEGO engineers have around 10 weeks to prepare themselves for competition which consists of 3 main parts:
A research project presentation
A presentation on core values including a teamwork exercise
The robot game competition
Each season, the engineers research a topic and design an innovative solution. For the Senior Solutions season, the LEGO Whippersnappers, took top honors at the First LEGO League (FLL) robotics regional championships held December 1st at Memorial Middle School in Albany, OR. The team won both the Robot Performance Award and the Director’s Award, which is presented to the team that receives top scores in four areas: robot performance, robot design/programming, research project presentation, and team work. The Whippersnappers designed a personal medication dispenser for in-home use by seniors, especially those experiencing the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
In 2013, the contest is focused on natural disasters and is titled “Nature’s Fury”. Avum has a team of four members this year all of whom are returning from past teams. Three of this season’s engineers are returning Whippersnappers. The 4th member is returning after being on the team 3 years ago when they were the Central LEGO Tigers. This season, the team is researching flooding and is specifically focused on working to develop a way to help the deaf community in dealing with natural disasters.
Read More