County 4-H Partners with Lenape Tech for Robotic Basketball Tournament

Lenape Tech students Wyatt Smith and Logan Stewart upload code to their basketball-shooting robot. The students are part of a local team that will enter the robot in a regional STEM competiton - entitled the FIRST 'Rebound Rumble' - March 8-10.

by Jonathan Weaver

Since University of Pittsburgh basketball teams are having a hard time winning this season, they might want to recruit some robots after a regional school competition in March.

The University’s Peterson Events Center will host a regional FIRST Robotics Competition March 8-10, with an Armstrong County team on the court.

The rookie team – which calls itself ‘Incognito Robots’ – was assembled by nearly a dozen Lenape Tech students and participants in the Armstrong County 4-H organization.

FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

The team will score points during the ‘Rebound Rumble’ if the robot can successfully shoot an eight-inch basketball in three different levels of hoops, with the tallest being eight-feet tall. A team member said that should not be a problem since the robot has scored in a 10-foot-tall basket. Students are able to win college scholarships during the competition.

Suzanne Boarts, Armstrong County 4-H Youth Development Coordinator said she looks forward to the competition, but was scratching her head during some of the construction.

“This is way-beyond my level of knowledge what they’re doing,” Boarts said. “It’s really incredible”

Team members received a kit worth more than $6,500 worth of parts – including a microprocessor and motors – after they registered for the contest, compliments of JC Penny in Indiana, Pa. Lenape Tech Science Instructor Eric Longwell also said ‘odds-and-ends’ were purchased by the team or found in the ‘scrap bin.’

“The kids have made a lot of these parts, even the precision machining parts. It’s pretty impressive,” Longwell said. “We didn’t recruit kids for the program that we’re going to have to worry about academic eligibility or horseplay. We were a little bit selective, but you can see how good they work together. They’re making mistakes – learning as they go – and it’s just a fantastic opportunity for them to get their hands in there.”

Boarts is thankful for the opportunity her group has.

“We were really fortunate that JC Penny were willing to partner with us to do this because without them, we were not be able to have this opportunity for the kids,” Boarts said. “They feel that science and technology is a major area they want youth to be involved in – it’s our future.

“What they’re learning is something you don’t learn in a classroom,” Boarts said. “It’s a great opportunity.”

JC Penney joined because of their focus on STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – education.

Lenape Tech – and West Shamokin High – Junior Dylan Kube and his father, Sam, built the robot cannon at KPM Herkules Group in Ford City within a few days. Both were interested in the project, but Dylan said it wasn’t always easy.

“It’s been pretty difficult along the way,” Kube said. “I haven’t really tried anything like this.”

Elderton High School junior Corbin Crownover assisted with the construction effort as well. Crownover – who shows steers at the Dayton Fair each summer – also had limited experience in robotics, but welcomed the challenge.

Lenape Tech Senior Logan Stewart studies mechatronic technology – which he defines as combining basic electronics to form moving parts – has been researching to code for weeks and finally feels he can control the robot.

“I knew what it needed to do, but wasn’t quite sure how to use this. (The controls) are all new to me,” Stewart said. “Everyday I’ve been researching the code at home to try and understand it better – it’s actually turning out really easy now.”

He wishes he had his own robot to program.

After six weeks of team work-sessions, ‘Incognito’ was able to practice on a regulation court at the Ellis Armory Robotics Practice Field in Pittsburgh, which was built by the “Girls of Steel” robotics team – who will also be part of the regional competition representing Fox Chapel Area High School.

“We shot more basketballs in the hoop than anybody there,” Longwell said.

However, during a final weigh-in, the team found the robot to be 15 pounds over the 120-pound weight limit and reduced the cannon.

Stewart said the smaller cannon shouldn’t affect the team’s performance in a few weeks.

“I think everything we’ve seen so far is actually positive – with less weight, it’s easier to control,” Stewart said. “It’s still as effective. Accuracy wasn’t compromised.

“It put us all under a lot of stress, and I think we’ll do (well),” Stewart added.

More information about the team and the FIRST competition can be found online at www.incognitorobotics.org.

‘Incognito Robotics’ is one of more than 90 teams that represent high schools and 4-H groups. Some other local 4-H grounds represented include those in Emlenton, Greensburg and New Bethlehem.

The 'Incognito Robotics' team with Lenape Tech Science Instructor Eric Longwell in the second row (red plaid)

Lenape Tech Elaborates on Half-Day Interest Experiment

Lenape Tech Joint Operating Committee President Joseph Close expressed a desire for Lenape Tech Administrator Dawn Kocher-Taylor (middle) to continue allowing high school freshman and sophomores to express interest in a half-day program option to see if it is a feasable possibility. Freeport Area School District Superintendent (on end) said it would become more difficult to deal with individualized class and transportation schedules if more interest is shown.

by Jonathan Weaver

High school students are continuing to show interest in attending Lenape Tech on a part-time basis, but administrators last week said there are no plans or considerations to transition the school to become part-time rather than full-time.

At their Joint Operating Committee meeting last Thursday, Administrator Dawn Kocher-Taylor conveyed that the half-day option freshmen and sophomore students from the Apollo-Ridge, Armstrong, Freeport and Leechburg school districts can take part in was not a secret, nor is it a means for alarm.

“All we’re here to do is to do what’s best for students: to help them prepare for college and career. There’s no hidden agenda, there’s no conspiracy theory: we’re just here to do what’s best for students,” Kocher-Taylor said. “We’re looking to see if there’s interest – if there is not continued interest, there is no reason to proceed or take further action.”

She and other school district representatives expressed they have received questions and concerns from parents concerning the program, partially due to a Kittanning Paper article last month after mailers were sent to applicable students. Interest so far has been primarily from high school sophomores.

Interested sophomore high school students are then sent computer log-in information that they can use to take skills tests and learn about possible programs of study.Since information was sent to guidance counselors and students about the experiment, 39 students have expressed interest in the half-day option. However, Kocher-Taylor said there were more than two dozen students interested before the 2011-12 school year began, but only five enrolled for classes.

Armstrong School District Representatives D. Royce Smeltzer and Sara Yassem suggested the program be up for a vote by the 36-member committee. That committee consists of all school board directors from all four districts.The 36-member committee does not actively meet as a whole, and usually only votes on the annual budget and officer appointments, unless there is a change in curriculum.

The nine Joint Operating Committee members are representatives from those districts.While Board President Joseph Close said he is hesitant to encourage young high school students to enroll part-time, he recommended Lenape Tech continue collecting data about the possibility.

“I think we need to let this pilot play-out a little bit to see what the desire is – maybe its something we just want to offer to 10th grade (or) maybe someday this evolves into a three-year program,” Close said. “Before we could ever offer a half-time program here to where a student could say ‘I want ‘x’ program half-time – what’s the schedule look like?’ we couldn’t proceed to develop something like that until we did it on a pilot program first to see what works for each student (or) each curriculum back at their home districts.”

Similarly, Kocher-Taylor has not made a recommendation to institute the program amongst junior and seniors.“We won’t know that until we look at the students,” Kocher-Taylor said. “Families want information and they want choices.”

Kocher-Taylor said the experiment evolved when five sophomore students showed interest in programs besides the current Computer Information Technology (CIT) part-time program in April 2011. At that time, she said representatives gave her the go-ahead to enroll the students.She said guidance counselors and staff are ‘flexible’ with scheduling around student extracurricular activities.

“We’re going to do everything we can to certainly allow them to do that,” Kocher-Taylor said.Leechburg Area School District representatives Jean Stull and Julie Baitz said they are in-favor of the half-day option, and said that as a whole, they thought their school board would be as well.

Students from Leechburg currently attend the Northern Westmoreland Career and Technology Center in New Kensington. However, current representatives Jean Stull and Julie Baitz expressed interest in discontinuing that contract.

“Julie (Baitz) and I are in-favor of all our students coming to Lenape. We aren’t in-favor of Northern Westmoreland at all,” Stull said. “We did have a parent that came in that discussed scheduling issues with her son who is half-time here, but regardless if we send them here or Northern Westmoreland, they’re still going to have those scheduling issues.

“I think overall our Board would be in-favor of offering half-day options; for sure,” she continued. 

Superintendent of Record Chris DeVivo – who is from the Freeport Area School District – said the opportunity to work around those schedules might decline if the experiment shows more interest.

“The more students that would enroll in the program, the less flexibility you would have to create individualized schedules for those kids,” DeVivo said.

Kocher-Taylor said Lenape Tech staff members put education first and seeing that enrolled students are able to graduate within their high school timeframe.

“The most important thing is that we can schedule your student in a way that they can meet the graduation requirements – that has proved to be the most-challenging and, obviously, the most important because of the loss of time in the school day due to transportation, different bell schedules and things of that nature,” Kocher-Taylor said.

Stull volunteered to be the operating committee's vice-president after fellow Leechburg school director Terry Knepshield resigned at the beginning of the 2012 calendar year. Her appointment was unanimously approved by the Joint Operating Committee and will now be voted on by the 36-member committee through mail ballot.

School administrators and representatives hope to have an estimate of the number of students who want to enroll in the half-day program for the 2012-13 school year by April.

Stull was also unanimously appointed by the operating committee as Board Vice-President. Her nomination will now by submitted to the rest of the 36-member committee, comprised of school board directors from all four participating districts.

Stull’s nomination came after former Vice-President Terry Knepshield also of Leechburg resigned at the beginning of 2012.