Atmel has posted the official press release at it’s website. Here’s an abstract:
Three Winners Announced for Atmel Robotics Contest
San Jose, CA, October 4, 2012 – Atmel® Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML), a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, today announced winners for the Atmel Robotics Contest, sponsored by the Atmel University Program. Judges challenged the teams to bring Mel, the University Program mascot, inspired robots to life at the World Maker Faire 2012 in Queens, New York, on Saturday, September 29.
Congratulations to the three winning teams:
Third place: Roger Tang, Ali Kocaturk, Sam Baran and Syed Sakib from the University of Texas, Austin for their robot, DWAI (Don’t Worry About It)
Second place: Kristina Pardo, Andrea Fant, Evdokiya Kostadinova and Haris Khan from Furman University for their robot, Aldo
First place: Ryan Huston from Folsom Lake College for his robot, Pinhead
The four judges were Alf-Egil Bogen, Atmel AVR® microcontroller co-inventor, Brian McLaughlin,GeekDad’s editor, Eric Weddington, Atmel’s open source community manager and Bob Martin, Atmel’s MCU applications manager.
An announcement has also been posted on the Furman News and Events page.
The team is home safe and sound. We picked them up at GSP around 6pm. They’re excited but exhausted. Aldo made it home as well–no problems getting through security at La Guardia.
At the time of this post (about 8pm) there are still no formal press releases from either Atmel or Maker Faire, but the team reports that Maker Faire did an intensive photo and video shoot of the awards/demonstration ceremony.
Furman Robotics Team packed up and ready to head out for GSP!
Those of you (all three of you) who have been reading these Furman Physics STEM blogs may have noticed that from a newsworthiness point of view they are about as exciting as watching grass grow or watching paint dry. Maybe not quite that exciting. A hah! Today we have some news to report! The Furman Physics Robotics Team is off to the 2012 Atmel Robotics Contest which will be held this weekend at the World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science in New York City. Furman students Andrea Fant, Haris Khan, Evdokiya Kostadinova and Kristina Pardo have constructed an autonomous robot (which they have christened “Aldo”) that will perform a specific set of challenges established by the sponsor, the Atmel Corporation. This project, part of the Furman Physics STEM Initiative, has been a four month long, high intensity activity on the part of the students and is under the direction of Dr John Conrad of the Physics Department.
Apple’s new IOS 6 for the iPhone has built-in panoramic photography capability. This let’s you take hand-held panoramas. If you want to do it like the pros, you need a pan-tilt platform. As an example of the types of projects we want to develop in the Furman Physics STEM Initiative, we built a two-servo pan-tilt platform to hold the iPhone. The header image for this blog was taken with our gadget.
Arduino pan-tilt platform for iPhone panoramic photography.
As I prepared for the AAPT Beyond First Year conference (see the next post, above), I had some trepidation about how to get my show-and-tell Arduino PID gadget to Philadelphia without incurring the wrath of the TSA! Turns out, it wasn’t that big a deal, at least not for me, thanks in part to the fact that I had read the extensive discussion of this issue at the Arduino forum. I’m glad I took the time to follow the recommendations there. All I endured was having to wait a few minutes while the TSA did the chemical swab wipedown of the hardware. Other attendees at the conference weren’t quite so lucky; several experienced long delays, and one grad student had components confiscated from his carry-on luggage!
Waiting for my flight from GSP to Philadelphia. Here's the carry-on luggage box with my Furman business cards plastered all over the box...... and with a copy of the poster session paper inside so that TSA might be reassured!
Welcome to the Furman Physics STEM blog! We have established this blog site to serve as a meeting ground and clearing house for curriculum development activity in physics education in the Physics Department at Furman University.
John R. Conrad
A major activity of the Furman Physics STEM Initiative will be the exploration of ways in which existing laboratory experiments in the current curriculum can be modified and/or augmented by the addition of Arduino projects to enhance student learning.
Augmentation and enhancement of existing laboratory experiments
Most students in elementary physics courses are already using embedded systems devices in their laboratory courses, without being aware that they are using embedded systems! Data loggers such as the Pasco’s GLX (which we use at Furman in the Physics 111 and 112 labs) and Vernier’s LabQuest devices are in fact quite substantial embedded systems platforms. The problem is that students see them as what they are—namely black box devices with canned software so that all of the work is done for the student. The pedagogical problem here is that these devices do not engage the student in a meaningful way! Rather than trying to replace these devices in the laboratory curriculum, it is our plan to augment the existing set of laboratory experiments with meaningful extensions of the same material using Arduino-based experiences.
These activities build on, exploit, and leverage the technology-based DIY/DIWO subculture of the Maker Movement to introduce embedded system Arduino technology at every level of the undergraduate curriculum, with the goal at a local level to increase by a factor of two the number of undergraduate physics majors at Furman. We hope to attract students who might not otherwise be inclined to major in physics. We believe that the material developed will be easily transportable to other institutions and will help to allow other institutions to also increase the number of students attracted to STEM fields generally, and in particular in undergraduate physics curricula. Although the specific projects we will explore are focused on the undergraduate physics curriculum, the approach and pedagogy developed will be easily adaptable to other STEM disciplines.
The strategic goals for this program address three issues:
Recruiting of qualified students into the undergraduate physics pipeline
Retention of those who enter the pipeline
Enhancing the quality of the education by providing an engaged, hands-on, project-based learning experience
In order to achieve the above strategic goals, we have identified the following seven categories of Arduino-based projects:
Augmentation and enhancement of existing laboratory experiments
Research laboratory apparatus
Lecture/showcase demo apparatus
Projects that interface with Mathematica & Labview platforms
