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1 6 S T U F F M A D E I N M A I N E \ F A L L 2 0 1 9 robotics way to affect that earlier stage," he says. "If you want to make changes in the workforce, you have to reach kids before they enter college." Corporate support The Robotics Institute of Maine has some high-profile corporate spon- sors, including ON Semiconductor, IDEXX Laboratories Inc. and Texas Instruments. Employees at the companies provide both financial and mentoring support to teams. Josh Chalmers, an IT and software applications manager with Texas Instruments in South Portland, said he was inspired to get involved with robotics when he started interviewing UMaine engineering students for intern- ships with his firm. "I started to see a real common- ality between strong candidates and a history with their high school robotics programs," he says. "I was especially impressed by a number of students that carved out time to volunteer with area high school robotics teams. That's when I knew it had something special." Thomas Moutinho, a devel- opment process engineer and manager also with Texas Instru- ments in South Portland, is equally impressed. "It's a rewarding ex- perience to watch a student's confidence and technical skill set significantly improve from their freshman to senior year due to the robotics program," Moutinho says. ON Semiconductor's Stinson, who traces his own interest in engineering back to childhood, says he recently hired someone his firm connected with through the robotics program as a design engineer. "He's a very independent prob- lem solver and comes with some software skills," Stinson says of the new hire. Speaking more generally, Stinson says that students learn important life skills through robotics from problem-solving to how to function as a team to leadership skills and time management. "They're practical skills that you learn through experience," he says. "Robotics programs give students an opportunity to experience an environment they might be exposed to in a real-world environment." Origins of two programs FIRST and VEX have similar objec- tives but different origins. FIRST, founded in 1999, is the brainchild of Dean Kamen, an American engineer, inventor and businessman best known for in- venting the Segway, a two-wheeled self-balancing per- sonal transporter. Today, FIRST op- erates a number of competitions includ- ing the international FIRST Robotics Com- petition for high school stu- dents and the FIRST LEGO League for elementary and middle school students. VEX Robotics is the global division of Innova- tion First, a global move- ment that started in a ga- rage in Greenville, Texas, by an electrical engineer named Tony Norman and a mechanical engineer named Bob Mimlitch. Both remain actively involved with VEX, recognized in 2016 by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest robotics competition. In the 2018-19 season, there were about 96 registered VEX teams in Maine and about 23 FIRST teams, and close to 1,000 participat- ing students, according to Robotics Institute board member Stinson. FIRST robotics teams sup- ported by the Robotics Institute of Maine are challenged to raise funds, design a team "brand," and hone teamwork skills, and get to compete for more than $80 million in college scholarships. Regardless of how they fare, all go home with valuable skills they can use for the rest of their lives. May the force be with you Back at Falmouth High School, en- gineering technology teacher John Kraljic coaches Northern Force, also known as FIRST Robotics Team 172, which lately has had around 40 student members and meets even in summer. "Our team's philosophy," he says, "is more about experience than about winning." Professional mentors who work with students include Richard Burt, an application engineer and me- chanical engineer at Lanco Inte- grated in Westbrook, who was on the Northern Force team himself back in high school. As a "hands-on instructional coach" to the team to- day, he underscores the importance of keeping even the best-intentioned parental interference to a minimum. "Learning what breaks, and all that kind of stuff, " he says, "is far more valuable in my opinion than winning the competition or coming up with a cool innovation to change the world." n » CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14 The Northern Force robotics team embraced 2019's "Deep Space" theme. $80,000,000 are available for FIRST Robotics scholarships from nearly 200 providers 45,000 robots have been created by FIRST Robotics An aerial view of the pit area, where teams work on their robots at events. P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F F A L M O U T H S C H O O L S Robotics Institute of Maine » www.robotsinme.org FIRST Robotics Competition » www.firstinspires.org VEX Robotics Competition » www.vexrobotics.com Maine Robotics, Orono » www.mainerobotics.org FIND OUT MORE P O S T E R / C O U R T E S Y O F F A L M O U T H S C H O O L S

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