S u m m e r 2011 MONKEY BUSINESS MonkeyNews of the Lynbrook High School Robotics “Funky Business Monkeys,” FIRST Team #846

In this issue P.1 A New Year, a New Adventure P.1 Championships at Anaheim P.2 A Summer on the Moon P.2 Beyond the Classroom P.3 A Blast From the Past Botball P.4 Ten Years of Lynbrook Robotics Championships at Anaheim By Diane Wang A New Year, a New Adventure t is easy for anyone to collect I ping pong balls and foam Welcome to the Lynbrook Robotics Team! Hi Team! blocks, and moving paper air- I hope you all enjoyed your summer va- Welcome to Lynbrook Robotics! In the planes across a table takes cation monkeying around and are eager to ex- past, our team has consisted of people with in- merely seconds to complete. pand your skills. Lynbrook Robotics wants to terests in math, writing, art and everything else However, Botball 2011 brought help you extend your scientific and mathemati- in between. Everyone, regardless of skill, has a a challenge for students: to cal knowledge beyond the classroom environ- place on our team. complete the same tasks using ment and apply them to our club. You can get The best chance to get involved is pre- only autonomously-run Lego involved immediately by helping us prepare this sented during build season. Our program is cen- robots. year’s robot for our first competition of the tered on the FIRST Robotics Competition, For the first four weeks of school year, CalGames, which requires us to summer, team members trav- this October. build a fully functional eled to Oak Grove High School Building a robot robot in 6 weeks. We every day to mentor their will involve skills such spend this time design- two Botball teams, collectively as computer program- ing, machining, and known as the Eaglebots. Re- ming, 3D CAD design, assembling a 120-pound gardless of specialty, students physics, and math; how- robot, alongside men- learned to manage all aspects of ever, no prior experience tors who are profession- building a fully functional, au- is required. Our veteran als in their various tonomous robot. Preparation for members and mentors fields. This process is the competition became in- will gladly guide you and challenging but gratify- creasingly stressful as the days help you develop these skills. ing, especially after seeing a robot that you’ve numbered down. Besides the technical challenges of build- worked on come alive on the competition field. “Seven hours a day ing a robot, we provide opportunities for you to Robotics has a lot to offer and I know seemed like a lot of time to showcase a variety of skills. For example, artists you all do too. High school is a time to take work, but the time always dis- and designers have a chance to improve our chances. It’s a time to try a bit of everything, appeared by the end,” said team website and to design banners. Our club also because all of the things you do now will impact member sophomore Michael presents opportunities for writers, public speak- your future one way or another. Get involved, Chang. ers, and math whizzes. I welcome all of you to take the initiative to try and learn, and I guaran- Sixty-four teams across join in on the fun! tee, it will all be worth it. Go Funky Monkeys! the globe attended Botball’s annual international competi- tion, GCER, in Orange Coun- Alric Siu Annie Yang ty, California. Teams faced off Lynbrook Robotics Co-President 2011-2012 Lynbrook Robotics Co-President 2011-2012 in a variety of competitions,

See BOTBALL, Page 3 [email protected] 2

A Summer On the Moon Beyond the

Vice president Brian Axelrod shares his Classroom experiences of working at NASA. Members of the Lynbrook By Jocelyn Shieh Robotics team pursue their fter hearing about an available summer outside interests. A internship from NASA researcher Mark Leon, Lynbrook Robotics vice-president Brian Robert Ying: Axelrod decided to take up the challenge. While most other rising juniors worked retail jobs and A group photo of the team from the NASA Ames For summers of my sophomore studied for their SAT’s, Axelrod spent his sum- Research Center. and junior year, I interned at Cy- mer researching and developing projects for press Semiconductor. It was a NASA instead. his two years’ worth of experience from robot- great opportunity for me to expe- “Since NASA is a government organiza- ics. For example, several programs used at rience engineering in real-life tion, they tend to have a larger focus on educa- NASA were similar to those used while pro- situations, and ended up being tion,” said Axelrod. “I believed that as a stu- gramming the robot. more engaging than I'd expected. dent, I would get better opportunities to learn “When I first started, I wasn’t clueless Some of the things I worked on about and experience different things there.” about the systems. I knew most of their func- were optical navigation systems, Axelrod’s main assignment, the Lunar tions and how to resolve issues concerning capacitive touch screens, and Micro Rover project, was to design and produce them,” said Axelrod. “One time one of our software development, both firm- a lightweight rover that would be inexpensive to mentor software engineers was confused over ware for the Cypress PSoC archi- send to the moon yet efficient enough to operate why the speed controllers were spitting out er- tecture and drivers for the An- well there. Several problems arose during the rors and I was able to solve the issue and ex- droid OS. project, such as low bandwidth and high latency plain to him why it was happening.” communications. However together with the In return, Axelrod gained valuable expe- Lunar Micro Rover team, Axelrod was able to rience that he plans to implement into robotics Miles Chan: make great strides towards solving these prob- this year. lems. “While most of the things we did at This summer, I went on tour as “Quite frankly, the typical work done by NASA wouldn’t be possible on our team be- principal second violin with the high schoolers there is manual labor, so once I cause of financial issues, I learned a great deal El Camino Youth Symphony managed to fix the problems puzzling the other about electronics such as radios and speed con- (ECYS) in Europe. The orches- interns and some software engineers as well, I trollers and machinery such as lathes and CNC tra was well received by audienc- gained a lot of respect,” said Axelrod. “It was a mills.” es in France and Spain, who good feeling, realizing that I was able to provide “It was a great experience,” Axelrod forced upon us 2 - 3 encores a valuable help beyond what they expected of said, “but I missed working with my team and concert. Needless to say, I had a high school students.” looked forward to the beginning of the school great introduction to European Axelrod credits his successes at NASA to year.” culture with my musical bud- dies. I am still with ECYS for the upcoming season; we appear next at Flint Center on Oct. 29! Fundraising at Concours By Vincent Yao Lucy Mou:

n Sunday, August 21st, Lynbrook Ro- Over the summer, I went to Nic- O botics went to Concours d’Elegance at aragua to volunteer. It was inter- Pebble Beach, CA. They sold concessions to esting to see how different life event-goers in order to raise money for the there was compared to life in the club. The team was also able to observe hun- U.S. Aside from the painting dreds of different cars, ranging from classic houses, building cement plat- models to brand new, luxury sports cars. forms and laying down pipelines, Members studied the designs, hoping to apply we also had fun swimming in them to future robots. Some members were Lake Nicaragua, the beach, and a lucky enough to see celebrities, including Jay freshwater lagoon. My favorite Leno, from afar. Overall, the members had a part of the trip was trying to great time helping their team while also en- teach a group of Spanish- joying the show for themselves. speaking Nicaraguan kids Eng- lish without knowing any Span- UPPER RIGHT: One of the hundreds of cars that ish. Though much of the volun- were at the event and in mint condition. teer work was manual labor, the RIGHT: Rishi Debnath and Eric Yeh serving trip was a great experience. customers lining up at their stand.

[email protected] © Lynbrook High School Robotics Team 3 Botball

Continued from page 1 including seeding matches and the highly anticipated double- elimination matches. Robots had to score through a number of ways, and with each task weighted a different amount, teams were forced to prioritize their strategies. The autono- Clockwise from top left: Stephen Giandomenico visiting Stonehenge; working mous aspect of the competition on assembling the drivetrain; explaining physics and circular motion to rookie also brought its own challeng- team members. es. “Even the smallest bump on the game field could imme- A Blast From the Past diately knock your robot off track. We learned by the end Former team president pays a visit to the Funky Monkeys. that effectively using sensors By Jocelyn Shieh was the only way to ensure a reliable robot,” said team pres- ident senior Alric Siu. ven now, you may remember Stephen Gi- “I am looking to continue on in the soft- Pre-conference work- E andomenico, the good-natured president of ware field,” said Giandomenico. shops, student presentations, the Funky Monkey Robotics Team from a few During the school year Giandomenico and keynote speakers made the years earlier. Though now a Lynbrook alumnus also participates in an MIT programming com- competition aspect only a frac- and MIT graduate, Giandomenico has not for- petition called Battlecode. The challenge of the tion of GCER. Speakers were gotten his former Robotics team. After complet- competition is to program a large number of continually presenting projects ing a full year at one of the nation’s top engi- virtual robots to battle and defeat an opponent’s from their own corporations neering and technology schools, Giandomenico robots, either by completing a task or simply and showing students real- reveals what it is like to be an MIT student with overwhelming them by force. Because the actual life applications of the skills a Robotics “degree.” competing is preceded by a four-week build learned in Botball. Giandomenico acknowledges that there season similar to that of the FIRST Robotics “GCER taught us more are many benefits in having experience in Ro- competitions, Giandomenio’s programming ex- than just how to build a botics throughout college. Majoring in computer perience from Robotics directly carries over to lego robot; constant events science and minoring in physics, he faces no the Battlecode competition. throughout the conference also shortage of situations where his Robotics “Thanks to all my years of working with taught us about the next Mars knowledge comes quite useful. For example, robots, I placed in the top 24 two years in a row rover project, robots as psy- Giandomenico had a definite advantage in his as a solo team,” said Giandomenico. chological data collectors, and intro EECS (Electrical Engineering / Computer Now, Giandomenico’s ties to robots ex- CAD software usage,” said Science) class, where the class focused on ro- ceed engineering. The former Robotics presi- Chief Hardware Officer Eric bots to learn the fundamental concepts of the dent, once working almost exclusively in garag- Yeh. course. With his Robotics experience backing es and competitions, found himself on stage last The two Botball teams him up, Giandomenico had no problem con- year for the MIT production of Karel Čapek’s managed to place in alliance structing and managing robots, and with his play “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” which, iron- matches, bringing back a tro- knowledge and skills easily segued into and ically, coined the term ‘robot’ from the Czech phy and a judge’s choice succeeded in the course. word for “forced labor.” It was a new and grati- award. With a nearby pool and “I went into the classes already knowing fying experience for him, who appreciated the hot tub, rooms in a four star how to build a robot and having a strong back- chance to learn more about robots from a theatri- hotel, and Disneyland only one ground designing and programming state ma- cal perspective. mile away, the students man- chine control systems,” Giandomenico said. Giandomenico sums up his four years aged to not only succeed com- “[Because of this] I quickly found myself a de of Robotics and four years of MIT with a few petitively, but also have a facto team leader.” well-chosen quotes. unique experience. Already knowing much of his courses “I have a passion for math, physics, and Eaglebots member senior thanks to Robotics, Giandomenico often finds computer science which stems from but now Andrew Michelsen said, “Even himself with time to spare. He turns time into extends beyond Robotics. I don’t want to work though the tasks were stressful productivity over summers, interning at Sun with robots for the rest of my life, but Robotics was the best way to initiate my interests in the at times, our days spent at Dis- Microsystems and Hulu, where he works with neyland and the conference engineers to develop software for the compa- aforementioned subjects,” said Giandomenico. truly made my summer unfor- nies. Though the competition for the internships “The experience I gained from Robotics gettable.” was fierce, Giandomenico managed to land is so broad,” Giandomenico added, “that I be- spots easily due to his past programming experi- lieve many of its results intangible: beyond that ence. which I can explicitly enumerate.” [email protected] © Lynbrook High School Robotics Team 4 10 Years of Lynbrook Robotics Upcoming Events From to , the Funky Monkeys are there for action

By Vincent Yao San Francisco Fleet Week — Sat.-Sun. Oct. 8-9 Zone Zeal Raising the 2002 2003 Bar 2004 Fundraising concessions sales with the Blue Angels

at San Francisco BikeBot

WRRF CalGames 2011 — Fri.-Sat. Oct. 21-22

Archbishop Mitty High School

FIRST Robotics Triple Play 2005 2006 Rack N’ Roll 2007 Competition Kickoff

SpiderMonkey — Sat. Jan. 7

Tetrabot San Jose State University Escargo

Meet the

New Officers

Alric Siu Co-President Overdrive Lunacy Breakaway 2008 2009 2010 Annie Yang ChimpBot Soccer Co-President

Moonkey

extreme Brian Axelrod Howler Vice President

Eric Yeh Chief Hardware Engineer

Robert Ying Chief Software Engineer

Miles Chan Treasurer Logomotion 2011 Lynbrook Robotics was founded Michael Lin Monkey the of Hand Secretary in 2001. Since its inauguration, its members have been dedicated to Diane Wang build the best robot possible. Every Public Relations year, the team has built a robot cor- responding to each new game. As Aneesh Sreedhar time passed, the team has gained Event Manager more and more experience from each robot designed and built. This Jocelyn Shieh has led to advantages in more recent Historian designs, as the team has had experi- ence with different techniques and Vincent Yao mechanics. These ten robots repre- sent what the Lynbrook Robotics Webmaster team has achieved in ten years.

[email protected] © Lynbrook High School Robotics Team