Intersession 2015
I chose to be in the Creative Writing Intersession once again this year, and again, we focused on writing memoirs, but this time, they were meant to be turned into spoken pieces, that we would eventually record, and present to the group. Here is both my spoken piece, and written one.
I, along with many other high schoolers, have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. As a really little kid, I wanted to be a pediatrician, then an artist, then I went through the classic “I want a pony!” phase, and then at some point I thought about being an author. I really don’t know how feasible any of these are, or how much I really want to do them at all, but I know that something I’m doing right now is swaying the decision in favor of a bit of a random choice - engineer.
In the Club Rush of my 9th grade, I investigated almost all of the clubs, and one of the clubs that interested me the most was the school’s robotics team. I put my name on the list of interested people, which turned into an email list. That year, though, I didn’t make it to any of the meetings. I had heard about the club’s incredibly large commitment, and it made me a little nervous. Meetings, 9-5, every weekend? What about the homework I’m sure I’ll be swamped with?
Flash forward a year to the Club Rush of my 10th grade. I was already helping to run the booth for my school’s newspaper, the Raptor Report, but in the little bit of time I had to look at other clubs, I went back to the robotics team’s booth. A few of my friends had joined the team in 9th grade, and I wanted to say hello. Again, I put my name down as interested, but this time, I actually remembered to come to the meetings.
At the first meeting, located in one of the 9th grade classrooms during lunch, we were given these weird orange plastic cubes that had all six sides pushed into the center to form an inverted point. We were put into groups, and were told to figure out a way — within our 45 minute lunch period, mind you — to make a robot pick up the cube and place it on a step. We made rough blueprints of our ideas, and then prototyped them with cardboard. My idea was to have two arm-like things push into the sides of the cube, then, using that pressure, lift the cube onto the step. There were a few ideas like mine in my group, so we modified them all to be even more effective. During that meeting, and subsequent meetings, I felt nervous, but also really excited to see what would come next. I had a lot of fun with the activity, and wanted to see what the next order of business would be. There was also talk of what the official challenge would be, which sounded really cool. While the huge time commitment of the team still made me a little nervous, I was really interested in the idea.
During “build season”, which was what we called the six weeks that we had to build our robot, everyone was busy. We had school during the week, and we worked on the robot constantly during the weekend. We worked at a place called Open Source Maker Lab (or, as we affectionately call it, OSML) - a part of the growing “maker” community. The maker movement is a thing where people build their own versions of things to use, instead of buying them. It encourages engineering, teamwork, and building. That’s just what OSML does. OSML is basically a small room that is meant to be a storefront as an entrance, and a big open warehouse in the back. The warehouse has every tool a robot-builder could need: 3D modeling software, a 3D printer, saws, even a laser cutter. It’s a pretty cool place.
One weekend at OSML, we were just about done with our robot. We had a mock field set up, just like how it would be at competition, and we were ready to test not only the field, but also the robot. One of the challenges of the game was to pick up and stack storage totes and place them on a scoring platform. We planned to tackle this challenge with a robot that had a conveyer system on the front - a chain with hooks specially made to pick up totes. We had all of our materials set up - the two totes we had were laying on the concrete warehouse floor, the scoring platform was sturdily attached to the ground, everything was ready.
When we turned the robot on, my friend Morgan and I, the sole members of the programming and electronics team, and I set up the joysticks for driving, and turned on the driver’s station application on the computer. When we turned on the teleoperated mode, which just means that we gave control of the robot to the driver, everyone’s hearts raced. We had tested the robot before, but only specific parts of it - we had never tried to pick up, move, and place totes in one fell swoop.
As all of the components whirred to life, Morgan and I relaxed for a moment. We had been working twelve hour days that weekend, and everyone was dead tired. I connected the computer to the router attached to the robot, and waited for communications to appear. Once they did, Morgan and I ran a few preliminary tests, to make sure the code was working properly, and then handed the controls over to another student. They ran the robot over to one of the totes, a little too fast for my liking, but I am pretty protective of it, and lined up the hook with the lip on the side of the tote. The conveyer lifted the tote successfully, and everyone held their breath in anticipation. Could the robot make a stack? Would all of the work we had put into it pay off? The driver led the robot to the second tote, and ran the conveyer again. Both totes were lifted into the air.
At this point, some of the members of the team were already cheering happily, but others waited; the stack wasn’t a stack until the robot could put it down. The driver moved the robot towards the scoring platform, lined up, and moved the conveyer down. The stack was set down without any problems, and when the team saw that, the room erupted into clapping.
In the commotion, one of the mentors approached me, beaming as much as I was, and said, “Makes you proud, doesn’t it?” I nodded in agreement. We weren’t even close to being done; the tests had uncovered some major coding issues, the driving had spawned some ideas for features of the code, not to mention the mechanical issues (namely the chain tensioning), but still. We had completed this task. We could complete the next tasks. It was all a matter of time.
I realize now that the gravity of this moment wasn’t all about the fun I had had with robotics. It was about how much work, effort, and care the team had put into the project. That was the feeling that I loved so much. Completing such a big project, after working on it for so long. I just hope that “what I want to be when I grow up” turns into something where I can be that satisfied.
In the Club Rush of my 9th grade, I investigated almost all of the clubs, and one of the clubs that interested me the most was the school’s robotics team. I put my name on the list of interested people, which turned into an email list. That year, though, I didn’t make it to any of the meetings. I had heard about the club’s incredibly large commitment, and it made me a little nervous. Meetings, 9-5, every weekend? What about the homework I’m sure I’ll be swamped with?
Flash forward a year to the Club Rush of my 10th grade. I was already helping to run the booth for my school’s newspaper, the Raptor Report, but in the little bit of time I had to look at other clubs, I went back to the robotics team’s booth. A few of my friends had joined the team in 9th grade, and I wanted to say hello. Again, I put my name down as interested, but this time, I actually remembered to come to the meetings.
At the first meeting, located in one of the 9th grade classrooms during lunch, we were given these weird orange plastic cubes that had all six sides pushed into the center to form an inverted point. We were put into groups, and were told to figure out a way — within our 45 minute lunch period, mind you — to make a robot pick up the cube and place it on a step. We made rough blueprints of our ideas, and then prototyped them with cardboard. My idea was to have two arm-like things push into the sides of the cube, then, using that pressure, lift the cube onto the step. There were a few ideas like mine in my group, so we modified them all to be even more effective. During that meeting, and subsequent meetings, I felt nervous, but also really excited to see what would come next. I had a lot of fun with the activity, and wanted to see what the next order of business would be. There was also talk of what the official challenge would be, which sounded really cool. While the huge time commitment of the team still made me a little nervous, I was really interested in the idea.
During “build season”, which was what we called the six weeks that we had to build our robot, everyone was busy. We had school during the week, and we worked on the robot constantly during the weekend. We worked at a place called Open Source Maker Lab (or, as we affectionately call it, OSML) - a part of the growing “maker” community. The maker movement is a thing where people build their own versions of things to use, instead of buying them. It encourages engineering, teamwork, and building. That’s just what OSML does. OSML is basically a small room that is meant to be a storefront as an entrance, and a big open warehouse in the back. The warehouse has every tool a robot-builder could need: 3D modeling software, a 3D printer, saws, even a laser cutter. It’s a pretty cool place.
One weekend at OSML, we were just about done with our robot. We had a mock field set up, just like how it would be at competition, and we were ready to test not only the field, but also the robot. One of the challenges of the game was to pick up and stack storage totes and place them on a scoring platform. We planned to tackle this challenge with a robot that had a conveyer system on the front - a chain with hooks specially made to pick up totes. We had all of our materials set up - the two totes we had were laying on the concrete warehouse floor, the scoring platform was sturdily attached to the ground, everything was ready.
When we turned the robot on, my friend Morgan and I, the sole members of the programming and electronics team, and I set up the joysticks for driving, and turned on the driver’s station application on the computer. When we turned on the teleoperated mode, which just means that we gave control of the robot to the driver, everyone’s hearts raced. We had tested the robot before, but only specific parts of it - we had never tried to pick up, move, and place totes in one fell swoop.
As all of the components whirred to life, Morgan and I relaxed for a moment. We had been working twelve hour days that weekend, and everyone was dead tired. I connected the computer to the router attached to the robot, and waited for communications to appear. Once they did, Morgan and I ran a few preliminary tests, to make sure the code was working properly, and then handed the controls over to another student. They ran the robot over to one of the totes, a little too fast for my liking, but I am pretty protective of it, and lined up the hook with the lip on the side of the tote. The conveyer lifted the tote successfully, and everyone held their breath in anticipation. Could the robot make a stack? Would all of the work we had put into it pay off? The driver led the robot to the second tote, and ran the conveyer again. Both totes were lifted into the air.
At this point, some of the members of the team were already cheering happily, but others waited; the stack wasn’t a stack until the robot could put it down. The driver moved the robot towards the scoring platform, lined up, and moved the conveyer down. The stack was set down without any problems, and when the team saw that, the room erupted into clapping.
In the commotion, one of the mentors approached me, beaming as much as I was, and said, “Makes you proud, doesn’t it?” I nodded in agreement. We weren’t even close to being done; the tests had uncovered some major coding issues, the driving had spawned some ideas for features of the code, not to mention the mechanical issues (namely the chain tensioning), but still. We had completed this task. We could complete the next tasks. It was all a matter of time.
I realize now that the gravity of this moment wasn’t all about the fun I had had with robotics. It was about how much work, effort, and care the team had put into the project. That was the feeling that I loved so much. Completing such a big project, after working on it for so long. I just hope that “what I want to be when I grow up” turns into something where I can be that satisfied.