"Anyone can be a leader"

February 27, 2010 - Dan Swando - Strategy Mentor

One thing I have learned since my first year in robotics 11 years ago is that anyone can be a leader. You may know a "natural born leader," but you don't need a certain genetic makeup to become a good leader. You may have take a leadership seminar, but that can only teach you tips for what to do when you are a leader, not how to be one. The way you learn how to become a leader is by being led. By being led, you learn who the good leaders are, and who the bad leaders are. You learn which teachers can inspire you to learn the material even after the class is over, and excite you about topics that should seem boring. You learn by being led by the micromanagers, the macromanagers, the hands-off managers, the hold-your-hand managers, the let-you-fail managers, the push-you-to-succeed managers.

But most importantly, such as in my case, you become a leader by understanding what needs to be done. When I was a freshman, I wasn't a leader. I never wanted to or thought I would be. I was the kid that sat off to the side and played gameboy when the upperclassmen were talking about torque and friction. Maybe I picked up a wrench once in a while to tighten a bolt or sat unraveling the strands of a nylon rope from the KOP so we could reweave it into a net, but for the most part, I was useless for my first 3 years on Team 217 - Royal Fusion. Even as a college mentor, I didn't feel that useful. But I absorbed a lot - even more than I realized that I knew. It took me being taken away from my home; my comfort zone to realize it, because like the solar-powered lightbulb in the middle of a summer's day, my brightness was overcome by the tremendous leadership sun of the mentors on my team. But once I was alone in the darkness, that's where I really shined.

I discovered that I knew more about wiring a robot, or machining a complicated part, or even designing a complex mechanism than I thought I did. And after watching almost a decade of matches at the time, I realized that I knew a lot about strategy and scouting too. But the knowledge alone didn't make me a leader. I became a leader when I understood what needed to be done, and I had the sense of urgency to get it done. When I discovered that if I didn't step up or speak up, then nothing would get done, that's when I accidentally became a leader.

And so I am excited to be the Strategy Mentor for the Gearheads, because I can use that leadership talent that I accidentally discovered to inspire other students to become leaders, even if like the freshman me, they show ABSOLUTELY no leadership skills as of yet. ::Kidding!::

When I realized that I knew what needs to be done to successfully build a robot, I became a leader. When I realized that I knew how to explain the process to others, I became a good leader. And when the students that I lead can go off and become leaders themselves, then I'll know that I'll have become a great leader.

The 2010 Animation Submission

February 20th, 2010 by Conor H. - Imagery Group

The Autodesk 2010 Animation Competition is an experience like no other. It provides students with a task, some tools, and the support needed to accomplish said task. This year’s “Change Your World” animation left students to choose their own project describing an invention that could change the world.

The Imagery group of Team 1189 got together and came up with one such idea, one that has the ability to not only change the world as we see it, but to also help with the environment. This idea came in the form of a transit system capable of carrying cars long distances on one platform. This would save on overall fuel costs as well as increase the efficiency of long distance travel.

Once the idea is formed, the conception of that idea into reality lies in modeling the basic objects that will serve as actors in the animation. These objects proved to be harder to conceptualize than to model, the general idea being rooted in place, but no clear design image to base a model off of. Once the basic shape was drawn out though, it became a relatively simple task taking no more than a few hours to actually model the objects in question.

The real hard work was in the environment and animation. Being relatively new to actually designing believable environments; building a road system was a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, the design work was already done, so all I had to do was copy the work from existing roads. Add textures and done!

The animation was a bit more difficult however. A lot of my time went into understanding the workings of inverse and forward kinematics— that is, the structuring and movement of bone systems within the trailer assembly. These bone systems allow easy linkage and rotation of any object connected to the bones. With forward and inverse kinematics, I was able to move one controller and have that affect the entire assembly accordingly.

In the end, the animation not only turned out to be a success, but it was also an exciting learning experience for me and the rest of the imagery team.

Gearheads Going Green (and Giving)

February 18th, 2010 by Mallory S. - Co-Captain/ Build Group Leader

Gallery Entries:

  • School Supply Sorting and Donation


    Every spring, the schools of the Grosse Pointe Public School System release students from classes to empty the contents of their lockers into trash bins, and at the custodians haul the hundreds of pounds of -abandoned binders, half-used notebooks, and empty water bottles out to an expensive rental dumpster, and send it to a landfill.

    Out of sight, out of mind, right? That wasn’t the thinking of the Gearheads. So we decided to do something about it.

    Our motives were simple enough at first- to reduce the waste output of the schools as a “green” initiative.

    But when we thought about it, there was so much more we could do with this idea. We came to realize that most of the items that students threw out were still perfectly usable; we could tear some used pages out of a notebook and use the rest, duct-tape over the covers of binders that had been written on, and recycle all the used paper that couldn’t be salvaged. We soon realized that we had our work cut out for us.

    After a brief correspondence with the administrators of 4 district schools, we obtained permission to set up collection bins in the halls during the locker cleanout days. When those dates arrived, Gearheads patrolled the halls and asked students who bee-lined for the trash cans to donate their supplies instead. The collection was a huge success. We found our team room buried- literally- in hundreds of binders, notebooks, backpacks, pens, paper, and even clothing; new, name-brand clothing.

    Over the summer months, we sorted what was still usable from what wasn’t; whatever wasn’t usable was recycled. But what to do with all of these supplies??? That was an issue that was resolved by a phone call from Earhart Middle School in nearby Detroit. School supplies are an expensive commodity commonly taken for granted in our own district- something that was made clear by our peers being so prepared to throw these practically brand-new items in the garbage. Our next mission? To ship our collection to the middle school students for use the next school year.

    A few truckloads and phone calls later, we had transferred thousands of school supplies to Earhart. A few Gearhead representatives were present for the distribution at the school’s registration day in August.

    While it is considered the greatest community outreach initiative in Gearhead history, we know there is room to expand. We only reached 4 of the 15 schools in our district. With an even larger team roster in the 2010 FRC season, the Gearheads plan to reach even further to make an even greater impact on the environment, and the less fortunate.