The Staten Island Technical High School Robotics Team, in Staten Island, New York, took its knowledge and skills to the baseball diamond.
The team created a robot that was capable of throwing a ceremonial first pitch and, in early September, the members were invited to showcase and execute their robot at a Staten Island FerryHawks minor league game. But Everton Henriques, KD2ZZT, engineering and technology teacher, said there was a major league snag.
“Approximately 30 minutes before ‘showtime,’ the team discovered a number of hardware issues that occurred during transport, followed by the complete destruction of the main servo wiring system during a subsequent test,” he said. “Cell phone calls and texts could not handle the communication chaos, and we had to resort to our established amateur radio simplex frequency to coordinate equipment and logistics in those final minutes. The team was spread out between the field, stands, and merchandise table in the upper deck area. Without radios, there likely would not have been enough time to coordinate efforts to get the job done…but in the end, the team was able to pull it off.”
You can watch the robot’s first pitch on the school’s Facebook page.
All 26 members of the robotics team hold amateur radio licenses, with 2 Extra Class and 3 General licenses in the mix.
“Cool stuff,” responded ARRL Education and Learning Manager Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, to the robot’s ceremonial first pitch.
Staten Island Technical High School is the first New York City school to receive a grant from ARRL. Goodgame said ARRL has been working with the school to build and equip an amateur radio station, to test and license students, and to put science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) kits in the classroom, thanks to a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC). Henriques attended the ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology earlier this year. The ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology is a donor-funded professional development program designed to help teachers elevate their STEM programs through the use of wireless technology.