Have you ever heard about SEPEI?
SEPEI is the Education, Research, Extension and Innovation Seminar that the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina promotes every year with the goal of showing the projects of every IFSC campus to the Institute’s community.
But what does that have to do with our team?
Everything! FRC5800, for being located at an IFSC campus and for being a groundbreaking project that is 100% managed by students, had a big impact at the event.
We promoted workshops, lectures and even a robotics tournament!
What did we do so that everything turned out perfectly?
Two months before the event, we began the project for a new robot that fulfilled the challenge proposed by FIRST this year.
Yeah, a new robot!
Why? Because, as well as helping us improve, test and overcome our impediments, we had as a goal to develop a more efficient robot that was able to complete all of the tasks given by the 2018’s challenge.
We spent multiple days brainstorming ideas, designing and prototyping as if we were in the middle of a Build Season!
Aside from that, we also built part of the arena satisfying all of the original requirements of the competition so that the teams we invited to participate could bring their robots over.
Meanwhile, we created a premise of a robotics tournament with the Lego platform and wrote the rules according to day-to-day traffic safety rules.
Encouraging students from IFSC campuses to learn more about robotics and to join the robotics world.
Introducing other FRC teams
To begin to talk about the other teams, we should discuss a bit about AIDTEC.
The International Association for Technological Development represents and invests in multiple robotics teams all over the world, philanthropically.
Now we can talk about the other teams’ visit during this year’s SEPEI.
We invited teams 1772 Brazilian Trail Blazersfrom Rio Grande do Sul and the teams 6902 S.T.R.I.K.E and 7033 Roostersfrom Paraná to participate in a sort of FRC simulation as part of our event.
The goal was to show a bit of how the competition works and to expose FRC in a simple way, showing what we do and why we do it.
Since we’ve talked a bunch about our team, now it’s time to give each of the other teams some attention:
- 1772 The Brazilian Trail Blazers: This team has been a part of the FIRST world for 13 years. It’s got 36 members; 22 students and 14 mentors. The team is divided into areas such as Mechanics, Programming and Communication. They have been to countries such as China, United States, Australia and Canada to compete and have achieved multiple awards.
- 6902 S.T.R.I.K.E: Created in August 2017, the team has 25 members from public and private schools of Foz do Iguaçu, and has achieved awards such as the Rookie All Star Award, given to the best rookie team, in Montreal, Canada. They were also part of the championship in Houston, US.
- 7033 Roosters: Brand new team from Medianeira - PR. They traveled to Rochester - NY to participate in the regional there and they have students from public and private schools. To this day, they’ve got around 20 members. The team meets 3 times a week at a school nearby to organize and finish activities.
Lego and Solidworks workshops
Picture from one of our Lego workshops and the participants were so focused they didn’t even pose for the picture. Seems like they were enjoying it!?
We all know that Lego platform can be super fun, but did you know that there is a specific type of Lego designed for robotics?
So, it does exist, and that’s what we use to introduce robotics to people who have never had contact with this kind of technology.
With this platform it is easy to teach and also to learn about programming and the mechanical parts of the robots. We hold workshops for those who are interested in this area and we always try to keep it super simple and practical, showing day-to-day applications of the technology..
For example, the creation of a robot that is used to optimize the distribution of medicine in a hospital, prioritizing, not only efficiency, but also the surroundings and the people.
Now, the program SolidWorks is used for the development of parts and pieces of the robot, and with it we can design things from gears to an entire robot!
And the best part is that we can print the designed parts through a 3D PRINTER!
This workshop aims toward a public that has previous interest or contact with this type of technology.
But that shouldn’t stop a person who has never even heard of the program from being a part of the workshop, especially since these workshops are initiatory only!
Okay, but why hold these types of workshops?
Basically, to show a bit, but just a tiny bit, of what we use to work and develop multiple things and also to introduce the gigantic world of robotics to our community!
Lego Tournament
After coming up with the idea to hold workshops, we decided to create a Lego tournament for those who are interested to have a taste of the robotics world.
We proposed a challenge with rules that sought solutions to a daily issue: Traffic safety!
The rules would benefit the teams that would put safety above speed.
Aside from robots and programming, each team also had to present an intervention proposition for this issue that puts so many lives at risk each year.
Many teams were created exclusively for this tournament, However, some intend to keep competing at a Brazilian Robotics Competition and other competitions.
We built three arenas for the robots to show their efficiency in different ways, using different positions and interactions.
We even drew a pedestrian crosswalk and traffic lights!
The tournament was a huge success!!
Oh, and you know what else?
A group of students from the Itajaí campus liked it so much the have ideas to create an FRC team over there!
Awesome, right?
These people who barely had any contact with robotics now want it to become part of their lives!
To show our gratitude
As gratitude is everything, we’d like to thank the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina’s dean, you were extremely gracious and attentive so that we had everything we needed at the event.
We are also very grateful to every person who participated in our workshops, sending great energies to our team and getting to know some of what we do with so much passion. Thank you to all the FRC and Lego teamswho traveled for so long to help us spread robotics and to share their knowledge with us. Ah, and we can’t forget to thank each member of our team.None of this would be possible without you. dedicação de cada um para que esse evento se tornasse memorável.
2018's SEPEI will never be forgotten by our team. May this be the start of a yearly tradition!!
And nothing is better than a video to show everything that went on at the event, right?
Then press play and check it all out!
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