Story by: Stephen Morenzoni
Having lived in North Chicago for nearly 25 years, I was surprised
that I didn’t know where Daniel Webster Junior High School
in Waukegan was. As I pulled up that snowy morning, I wasn’t
sure what to expect. An eight hour robotics competition didn’t
exactly seem like a good time. However I dropped off Patrick
and Marcus and looked for a parking spot.
As I walked into the gym I saw a bunch of tables setup and kids
looking for their coaches. I was amazed at how many teams there
seemed to be. There were twenty teams in all. They had names
like the Gigawhats, Engineers in Training, R1E6, and Team Imagination.
The YWCA was even sponsoring a team of all girls! One of the
things I quickly noticed was that all the teams had shirts except
for Neal Nation Robotics. This is something we will have to
fix next time.
The other teams looked to be so prepared for what was happening.
I walked up and introduced myself to Mr. DeThorne. He looked
busy, so I walked over and sat down on one of the fifty year
old bleachers. As I watched, the team took out their supplies,
booted up a laptop and gathered around their robot.
I remember being pleasantly surprised about how cool the Neal
Nation robot looked. It had two large wheels in the middle with
stabilizers on the back and large claws on the front. Later
on the kids said they designed it to look like a Transformer
scorpion.
As the judges began setting up tables with an obstacle course
like map on them, I began to see how complicated this competition
would be. I also noticed how much equipment the other teams
had. Realizing that this was the first time these kids would
be competing and seeing how prepared the other teams seemed
to be, I wondered how well the kids would do.
The kids began checking their robot as 9:00 approached. It
was then that I noticed the kids were feeling the same way I
was. Instead of trusting the work they had done, they began
changing things. “Some last minute engineering”,
Mr. Dethorne said. I have to admit I was a little worried.
Around 9:40 the team had to go to make a technical presentation
in front a panel of three judges. The judges appeared to be
Navy personnel who were volunteering their time. The kids seemed
unprepared to me as they entered a classroom just down the hall
from the gymnasium. I was worried that this wouldn’t go
well. Boy was I wrong!!
As Edgar, Jeremiah, Michael and the rest of the team began
speaking, I was amazed at how prepared they really were. They
talked about the different aspects of their design and why they
made the choices they did. They answered one question after
another, speaking about the claws, the stabilizers, and how
much Mr. Dethorne had taught them. They talked about gear ratios
and power produced by the motors. I could see the excitement
in their eyes as they finished by demonstrating one or two of
their programs. The excited group of kids left the room and
headed back to the gym. They seemed disappointed but Mr. Dethorne
told them how well they had done.
Around 11:00 a man came over and told them that it was their
turn to use the practice course for ten minutes. Then they were
to compete against another team at 11:10. This was to be their
first big test of the robot! How would it do? As they stood
around the table the kids seemed to lose their sense of teamwork.
They began arguing with each other and despite Mr. Dethorne’s
best efforts; things didn’t seem to be going well.
When they got to the competition table, they had two minutes
to finish as many missions as possible. Some of the missions
they had to do were to push a Lego dam to a certain place on
the map, push a power line to another place and retrieve other
objects and bring them back automatically. The two students
assigned began running the programs they had downloaded from
the laptop to the robots brain. It appeared that things weren’t
going well.
As the kids left the table the team was discouraged. They didn’t
think they had done well. I wondered what they would do. To
my surprise, instead of giving up, they headed back to their
table to figure out what went wrong. That really impressed me.
They were upset but weren’t giving up. Mr. Dethorne called
them together and took them to lunch.
At lunch, Mr. Dethorne told them, “You shouldn’t
be disappointed. You are the first robotics team North Chicago
has ever had. This is the first competition you have competed
in and this was the first round of the first competition. Let’s
get our score and see what we need to do better on the next
round.” There score was 85 points. While this was in the
lower half, it wasn’t close to the bottom.
I had to leave for a short while after lunch but when I came
back I was pleased to see that team had not only improved each
round but was comfortably in the middle of the pack. Their best
round was 140 points. I watched them compete for the final time,
and noticed how, instead of arguing with each other, they all
stood around and cheered each other on.
I missed the presentation phase of the competition but Mr.
Dethorne seemed pleased. I was there for the teamwork phase.
The kids talked about how much they had learned. They expressed
how disappointed they were that they wouldn’t get to compete
again next year. They also talked about Mr. Dethorne. As they
spoke I could hear the appreciation in their voices. This competition
had taught them many things. The most important was how much
they could accomplish when they listened to their coach and
worked as a team. Mr. Dethorne tried to deflect attention from
himself and put the focus back on the kids. It was wonderful
to see. A proud coach talking about his students and the students
showing genuine gratitude for the efforts of their mentor.
We hung around until 5:00 to hear the announcements of the
teams that would be going to compete in the state competition.
Patrick and Marcus were the only two students left with Mr.
Dethorne and me. I knew we wouldn’t be hearing the name
of Neal Nation Robotics but as Marcus walked up to get a copy
of the team picture and a CD with other pictures on it, I thought
about how much I had enjoyed the day. As a dad, I was amazed
at how much Patrick and his classmates had been able to accomplish.
I also proud of the entire team and hoped that they would all
appreciate what they had done in the last several months.
Finally as we were packing up, Mr. Dethorne told me about
his desire to expand the program district wide. Being able to
teach science, math, computer programming and teamwork at the
same time and make it fun for the kids. I couldn’t think
of anything better! Patrick and Marcus talked about becoming
mentors to seventh graders. As they talked, I could hear in
each of their voices, a mentor and his team, how proud they
were of what they had done. Not bad for a snowy Saturday in
December. |
