as the announcement was made, the teams retreated to their respective work areas the MDF had set up to begin planning.
students work with them all day. When they left that evening, they had a working robot.
Hardin Valley Academy students describing their work in Additive Manufacturing at the NAAMI press conference.
Build season for FIRST is an intense six weeks. Teams work every night and all day Saturdays in order to meet the deadline. We found that some of the first year teams were struggling with design issues, programming, electronics and other issues. So, our students decided to add a collaboration component to the MDF outreach. FIRST’s mantras are “Gra- cious professionalism” and “Coopertition.” These are beliefs that encourage high-quality work, emphasize the value of others, and respect individuals and the community as well as the philosophy that teams should help and cooperate with each other even as they compete.
Our team decided that, in the spirit of these two ideas, we should reach out to all teams during a “Lunch and Learn” on Saturdays. During the sessions, a representative from each team would report to the group about their teams’ progress on their robots, discuss any problems they were having and share ideas that may help the other teams. This turned out to be a great success.
As the weeks progressed, the teams were more open to sharing: design issues were drawn on white boards, strategies were debated, programming problems were worked out, and as a result, hundreds of parts were printed. We had miniature engineering and manufacturing companies working in one building—and all run by high school students. We were so successful that on one Saturday, as we arrived to work, a school bus carrying five students from Hawkins County, an hour and half drive from Knoxville, drove up to the high bay. They had heard what we were do- ing, were desperate for help and wanted to know if we could give them advice. We invited them in and had mentors and
By the end of the six week build season, we quickly real- ized this program had come a long way from simply building a robot to a true Workforce Development program. Our first competition took place in March. The Smoky Moun- tain regional had 54 competing teams, including every team with whom we worked at the MDF. HVA FIRST Team 3824, the RoHAWKtics, made it all the way to the last round of the semi-finals, only to lose in the last match. We had many judges comment that we had the best robot on the field because of the uniqueness of it—all due to additive manufacturing. We competed again three weeks later at the Peachtree Regional in Atlanta. Sadly, we lost again in the last round of the semi-finals, but we won much admiration from the Board mem- bers of FIRST and many others. U.S. Department of Energy’s Secretary Chu saw our robot in action during a visit to the MDF. In August, we were invited to Youngstown, Ohio to the NAAMI press conference to announce the Obama Administration’s Additive Manufacturing initiative. Our kids met Secretary of Com- merce Rebecca Blank, Obama Economic Advisor Gene Sperling as well as Defense Department and Congressional leaders. Our kids spoke to them about Additive Manufacturing’s role in the production of our robot, but also the skills they acquired during build season and how they hoped that they could go to college, further develop these skills, and come back to our com- munity and find jobs. If this occurs, the workforce development cycle will be complete.
HVA’s FIRST Team 3824 Additive Manufactured Robot.
Workforce development for manufacturing starts early. We need competition (i.e., FIRST) to excite the kids, access to new technologies, such as additive manufacturing, and help from experienced mentors. This combination can ensure a solid foundation for the future of U.S. manufacturing. ME