Mentors Help Students Build a Better Robot
Frustration mounted for the 18 students from Willowbrook’s King-Drew Medical Magnet High School. They had traveled to Phoenix, along with hundreds of students from throughout the country, to see who could build a better robot.
When running smoothly, their 2-foot high, 3-foot wide creation -- named Roybot -- can scoot along at 8 mph, pushing and lining up boxes.
But midway through a practice run, the robot’s motor heated up and faltered. Then its engine burned out.
‘“Everyone was depressed,” said team captain Paullette Flores, 17. “It was getting real frustrating.”
That’s when Nathaniel Bowman stepped in.
Bowman, 48, a prototype machinist for 25 years at Hughes Aircraft and now Raytheon Systems, is part of a six-person mentoring team who donated up to 14 hours a week for six weeks to help the students make the robot.
Bowman, who at Raytheon makes precision parts for engineering plans, helped the students quickly replace the motor and gave them a pep talk.
“Nathaniel just told us to go and smile and do the best we can, and he gave us enthusiasm,” said Flores. “Nathaniel is fun, but when it comes to getting the job done, he’s very serious and strict on testing, so our robot can run without malfunctions.”
Bowman’s encouragement helped.
On March 14, the King-Drew team, nicknamed the Cyber Eagles and allied with West Covina High School and a high school from Phoenix, beat out 36 teams from eight states, advancing to the national competition in Houston to compete against 306 teams.
The Cyber Eagles didn’t fare as well in Texas in April, finishing 53rd in their division. Still, they recently celebrated their performance with an event at the high school.
“It’s hard for me to tell you the feeling I get from helping these kids,” said Bowman, who grew up on 88th Street and Central Avenue near Watts, two miles from the school. “Giving back to the community, helping children, trying to make a difference -- it’s a wonderful thing.”
Bowman said the group of mentors started helping the first King-Drew team three years ago, and this year’s team was the most successful.
Although the mentors help out considerably, the students get very involved in the robot’s development.
This year, one of the events in Phoenix required the robots to move a series of boxes in the middle of a field where a bridge was set up. Knowing that, the team provided their robot with arm extensions.
New Hampshire’s FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, began the robotics competition in 1992. The nonprofit group’s mission is to teach students about the impact that science and technology have on people’s lives. Now, more than 20 schools in Southern California have robotics teams.
By working on the robots, students see how math and science work together. Senior Louis Martinez said the experience has been “enlightening.”
“I’ll be able to apply what we learned to real-life situations,” he said. “We used Newton’s laws and the Pythagorean theorem to make the robot. We learned about how electrical current is produced. It was a great experience.”
A computer science teacher at King-Drew raved about the program.
“It’s fantastic,” said Major Wilburn, 57. “The kids get a chance to put math and science and engineering all together to make something actually happen. Things really come alive for the students.”
In Arizona, part of the competition allowed for robots to try to push other robots off a platform where boxes were being stacked. The students and mentors devised a high-powered blower that slowed the rivals down.
Companies such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman provide financial and professional support, paying for robot parts and providing mentors.
Six weeks before the event, each robotics team in the country receives $4,500 worth of identical parts -- sheet metal, drill motors, gears -- to get the robot started. The teams also learn at that time what the robots will be expected to do.
The students at King-Drew came up with ideas, and their mentors taught them how to make them real.
“It really did open our eyes to how science and technology work,” said team member Correta Tillary. “It’s one thing to read and study about science, but to actually see it work and to be part of building that robot was fascinating.”
The robot was named Roybot after the school’s late principal, Ernie Roy, who had long wanted a robotics team at his school.
Roy died of cancer Feb. 10, 2001, before the robotics team was created. When it came to naming the robot, Roybot was the unanimous choice.
With major help from Los Angeles Trade Technical College instructor Steve Shibuya, who let the team use the college’s sophisticated machine shop, the team began work on Roybot.
The 18 students each put in more than 100 hours of work on the project. Many of the mentors did the same. Testing of the robot went on all the way up to the frantic minutes before the Arizona event.
“Sometimes we’d be working on the robot till daybreak,” said Bowman. “We wanted to make sure it didn’t malfunction.”
“I want to thank Los Angeles Trade Tech,” said Martinez, 18. “We couldn’t have built Roybot without them. We don’t even have a machine shop at our school.”
Bowman shaped pipes, bolts, screws and other pieces.
“Some of the things he does, we can’t do -- it’s just too dangerous,” said Tillary. “But he’ll explain it to us. He was really nice.”
Raytheon engineers Raymond Malone, Bill Jordan and Michael Morgan, Northrop Grumman engineer John Crear Jr., and Aerospace Corp. engineer Daniel Martin helped with the robot’s motor and design.
Bowman recalled the rough day the team was having in Arizona when Roybot was not doing what they wanted it to do.
“I remember that day in Phoenix when they were down, and I had to bring them up,” said Bowman. “I just reminded them we had some time to fix the robot and not to give up. When we won, well, it was just beautiful, man.”