In April, the Southeastern Consortium of Minorities in Engineering (SECME) named Vince Hamilton, the robotics coach of Houstons Young Men’s College Prepatory Academy, Teacher of the Year. His team posted a 5-0 record at last month’s SECME Championship in Clemson, South Carolina. We recently spoke to him about his team’s trip to the VEX Robotics World Championship, their preparation for playing Skyrise, and how participating in robotics has helped make his students better problem solvers. RECF: How did you wind up becoming a robotics coach? Vince Hamilton: Thats a long story. Since I teach the class, Im there with the students every day, and we do a variety of things. We do engineering projects like underwater robotics, Legos, we do VEX, and some SECME projects. They build water-bottle rockets, and we do mousetrap car, which is another SECME project. RECF: How long have you been coaching robotics? Vince Hamilton: The school is three years old, and Ive been there all three years. This will be our fourth year. Were going into our fourth year. RECF: How has your team developed over the years? Has your team been to World Championship? Vince Hamilton: We went this year. It was fantastic. There were 152 teams for middle school from all over the country, and the kids just really got a lot of experience from that, and they grew a lot because they got to see world-class engineers, roboticists, and engineers. It was a tremendous experience for the teachers and the kids. RECF: Your team fared very well at the SECME Championship. You went 5-0, correct? Vince Hamilton: Right, we actually won the robotics competition, so we had the number-one performance on the field. It just turned out that our engineering notebook was not turned in in time, which was a huge lesson for the kids. Wed been pushing them all year to get that turned in, and then they turned it in late, so we ended up in third, but we--by far--had the best-performing robot. RECF: What sort of strategy do you guys use, like do you have a solid autonomous that you use for competitions? Vince Hamilton: We designed the build so that the robot would do all the tasks, scoring the buckyballs, lifting the big balls. Our robot could stack the big ball on top of the cylinder, and we could also hang with the big ball, but one of the problems we had, even after maybe 20 adjustments, was the center of mass was off, and so it would rock back and forth. Late in the season, we finally cured that issue by moving the center of mass forward, into the center of the robot and that made all the difference in the world. It was a lot sturdier, agile, and more precise. RECF: Has your team had a chance to work on the new game, Skyrise? Vince Hamilton: I had a meeting with the parents about how to engage their students and the commitment I need from the parents. I think were actually going to meet this week, our first meeting, but one of the parents and I went to Hawaii for the Event Partner Summit and the International VEX Summer Games. I got a chance to referee all day, like 50 matches. RECF: What were your impressions of Skyrise? Vince Hamilton: Actually, I love it. I was a little slow to come to appreciate the game, but having been there and refereed the matches, I think its an extraordinary game. Its going to take a lot of skill in terms of building for the task. I think the autonomous period is going to be really important. RECF: What would you say are some of the effects that the robotics program has had on your students? Vince Hamilton: We made probably 30 or 40 different improvements to the robot over the course of the last season. Their ability to analyze and solve problems, its just extraordinary. These students are in 8th and 9th grade now. For them to solve problems like that is something you cant teach out of a book. You cant teach that in a classroom. That has to be hands-on. From day one, were starting our notebook. We learned that lesson. Were starting our notebook, so all the ideas that these guys come up with, were going to chart those out and track them from day one.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:56:01 +0000
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