United Technologies Center

Twenty-four (24) students from a number of area high schools, participating in the one-year Robotics program at the United Technologies Center in Bangor, will soon be leaving for regional competition in Worcester, MA.  The team was established four years ago, and by popular vote of its charter members it was dubbed “FATAL ERROR” – a computer technology term.  Computers are what “drive” most of what the team does.
 
In its short existence, the team has traveled to Hartford and Boston, and this year will be at Massachusetts’s Worcester Poly-Tech, competing from March 10th through 13th.  The goal this year was to design a totally maneuverable semi-autonomous robot, capable of maneuvering a soccer ball around an arena, over obstacles as high as 14”, and with the ultimate objective of kicking the soccer ball through a target ring into a goal.  
 
UTC’s robot was designed and built entirely by the students, meeting specified operational parameters chosen from a slate of possible actions, all of which have been presented by FIRST Robotics.  “FIRST” is an acronym of “For Inspiration (and) Recognition (of) Science (and) Technology”, a program developed by inventor Dean Kamen, co-founder of Deka Research and Development of Manchester, NH.  This year, precisely at 10 a.m. on January 9, each team, nation-wide, was assigned the tasks their robot is to perform.   They all found out simultaneously from the Internet, through a NASA satellite link beamed live from Deka’s headquarters in Manchester.  Once the assignment is known, the team – which had met for months in anticipation of this event – begins to actually design the robot. It’s a true team effort.
 
The robot is built from a $6,000 kit of basic components, purchased from Deka, which arrives a huge plastic bin.  The actual configuration of the robot is determined by the students – no two robots look or operate alike.  In the case of UTC’s robot, built on a rectangular chassis with a wheeled stationary leg at each corner,  its most striking component is a series of “Quonset-style” arches – bright blue “loops” built of PEX tubing obtained from UTC’s Plumbing and Heating Technology department – to provide roll-over protection for the computer and mechanical components.  The chassis’s perimeter is protected by fabric-covered dark-blue bumpers, constructed from used “pool noodles” which were donated by the Bangor Y. 
 
All through the design and construction process, the UTC students are working with UTC FIRST Robotics alumni – themselves former UTC students who have moved on into Engineering and Technology programs at both the University of Maine and Eastern Maine Community College.  This interaction provides the current UTC students valuable exposure to the area’s higher education programs.  The robotics program is very heavily “laced” with physics and engineering, and through robotics the students learn a very solid lesson in the application of principles of both disciplines.
 
The robot ships out of Bangor on February 23rd, in a 4’x4’x6’ crate.  The “FATAL ERROR” Team departs for WPI on March 10th.   During the competition, the entire school can watch their team’s achievements on the Internet, via the NASA Satellite link.  During the actual competition, the team-built robot is then driven by one student, while a second student operates the robot’s mechanical kicker.
 
Ron Canarr, of Orrington, has been the FIRST Robotics instructor for the entire four years.  When asked how the school became involved in the competition, he replied, “How can we say this?  Former (UTC) director Greg Miller ‘persuaded’ me to try it”.  Canarr’s father was an engineer, and he followed in his father’s footsteps.  He grew up in a “mechanical environment”, exposed to communications and engineering at an early age.  His youth experience included controlling studio communication equipment from a remote location.  Though his degree is actually in education, his talent is in technology.  In Canarr’s life, robotics is coupled with computers and communication.  Today, his students mirror his taste for technology.
 
Two years ago, a UTC robot was sent by Canarr's mother via U.S. Mail to his brother Rick, stationed in Kyrgyzstan with the U.S. Air Force.  Canarr noted that one package carrier wanted $1,000, and another wanted $400.  The postage was $60.  After uncrating and set-up by Rick Canarr, the robot was operated through a series of complex maneuvers by students at UTC in Bangor, and they watched real-time video of its actions through the same satellite link through which the commands were being sent.
 
Both Fred Woodman, UTC Director, and Merle Adams, Assistant Director, are very enthusiastic about the program, the team, and its achievements.  Adams noted that UTC had frequent visits by teams of educators from the Department of Education in the neighboring Canadian province of New Brunswick.  The province had let its technical education program “slip away” about 15 years ago. Its absence began to cause increases in high school drop-out rates, and the lack of a skilled labor force was having a negative effect on the provincial economy.    For the last five years, NB educators have visited various technical education programs in both Canada and the U.S, including UTC, to “observe the (program) framework, take it back (to NB) and modify it to meet their needs, and are rebuilding their technical education program”.  After that initial round of visits, their focus and repeat visits have been on UTC, and New Brunswick’s program is now heavily based on principles of the “Rigor, Relevance, Relationships, and Reflection” as developed by Dr. Willard "Bill" Daggett and used by UTC.
 
Outshone by the thrill of robotic competition, the students aren’t focusing on the physics basics they’ve acquired – they’re there to win!  In the meantime, they’re doing area high schools proud, and advancing the cause of technical education!

Written by:  Mike Gleason, UTC Staff
 
UTC Main Office:  207.942.5296
 
Fred Woodman, Director              fwoodman.utc@gmail.com
Merle Adams, Dean of Students  madams.utc@gmail.com
Ron Canarr, Robotics Instr           rcanarr.utc@gmail.com