East High Students to compete at NSBE Convention
Robotic maneuvers
Robotic maneuvers
High chapter grown to 29 students this academic year. The grant covered the registration fees that allowed four chapter members — Andrew Goldsby, the club’s
president, Xavier Buesing, Jonathan Martin and Tenzin Khedup — to compete in the NSBE regional science competition held in Detroit last fall.
Their mission was to build a robot. “Teams of four had to build a robot that could follow a line,” Goldsby explained. “There was supposed to be elevations
and stairs of half an inch. We had to design a robot that would be able to follow the course specifications. We built the robot out of a NXT LEGO Mindstorm kit,
your more sophisticated LEGO you played with as a kid that involved computers.”
Each of the students had to play a specific role in building the robot. Goldsby was the mechanical engineer, Buesing the industrial engineer, Martin the
electrical engineer and Khedup the computer engineer. The students had to complete the project as a team. No outside help was allowed. “There were about
seven teams,” Goldsby said. “The robot had to complete the course in less than two minutes. The robot had to fit within a six inch by seven inch open box. We
could only use parts from one kit, which was kind of hard since the main issue with our robot was the batteries. They would drain pretty quickly. We bought this
rechargeable battery that we weren’t allowed to use because of the competition requirements. So we had to use a lot of new batteries.”
“I had to do paperwork sketches,” Buesing explained. “I made the first prototype robot to see how we could get the program working. Then Andrew built the actual
robot off of that.”
Martin, as the electrical engineer, had to connect all of the cords to the right components and into the right slots. And Khedup had to program the robot to
complete the course on its own without the benefit or a remote control. “I had to research the previous robots and had to do the coding for it,” Khedup said. “I
used Robot C, which is a basic version of C++, the industrial coding language. I also used the LEGOS NXT program. I’ve always been interested in C++ and I
noticed there was a Robot C for the robot, so I just took interest in it and started programming it officially. I couldn’t go to anyone for help, so I had to research
everything. It all involved self-learning. I didn’t know how to execute some of the codes and had to use trial and error to come up with the correct code.”
The students’ hard work paid off and they won the Region IV competition. They are now set to rebuild their robot and compete on the national level in Las
Vegas in March.
Each of the students plans to take up engineering as a career with Goldsby hoping to attend the Milwaukee School of Engineering and Khedup developing
his skills to attend the University of Wisconsin through his participation in the Information Technology Academy.
As a part of the DPI grant, the East High club has also become involved on the middle school level. “We’re going to talk about a specific branch of engineering
and do a hands-on activity related to it,” Chin said about the visits to the middle schools. “We’re trying to do that periodically throughout the year partly because
we’ve seen the benefits of the outreach that the UW students have had on our students and we felt maybe we could replicate that at the middle school level. It
also gives our high school students the chance to take on more of a leadership role.”
The UW NSBE Chapter has planted seeds on the high school level that in turn is planting seeds on the middle school level. Hopefully these efforts will reap
a harvest of African American and other engineers in the future, equipping high school students with the interest and the skills to compete in today’s
technological economy.
president, Xavier Buesing, Jonathan Martin and Tenzin Khedup — to compete in the NSBE regional science competition held in Detroit last fall.
Their mission was to build a robot. “Teams of four had to build a robot that could follow a line,” Goldsby explained. “There was supposed to be elevations
and stairs of half an inch. We had to design a robot that would be able to follow the course specifications. We built the robot out of a NXT LEGO Mindstorm kit,
your more sophisticated LEGO you played with as a kid that involved computers.”
Each of the students had to play a specific role in building the robot. Goldsby was the mechanical engineer, Buesing the industrial engineer, Martin the
electrical engineer and Khedup the computer engineer. The students had to complete the project as a team. No outside help was allowed. “There were about
seven teams,” Goldsby said. “The robot had to complete the course in less than two minutes. The robot had to fit within a six inch by seven inch open box. We
could only use parts from one kit, which was kind of hard since the main issue with our robot was the batteries. They would drain pretty quickly. We bought this
rechargeable battery that we weren’t allowed to use because of the competition requirements. So we had to use a lot of new batteries.”
“I had to do paperwork sketches,” Buesing explained. “I made the first prototype robot to see how we could get the program working. Then Andrew built the actual
robot off of that.”
Martin, as the electrical engineer, had to connect all of the cords to the right components and into the right slots. And Khedup had to program the robot to
complete the course on its own without the benefit or a remote control. “I had to research the previous robots and had to do the coding for it,” Khedup said. “I
used Robot C, which is a basic version of C++, the industrial coding language. I also used the LEGOS NXT program. I’ve always been interested in C++ and I
noticed there was a Robot C for the robot, so I just took interest in it and started programming it officially. I couldn’t go to anyone for help, so I had to research
everything. It all involved self-learning. I didn’t know how to execute some of the codes and had to use trial and error to come up with the correct code.”
The students’ hard work paid off and they won the Region IV competition. They are now set to rebuild their robot and compete on the national level in Las
Vegas in March.
Each of the students plans to take up engineering as a career with Goldsby hoping to attend the Milwaukee School of Engineering and Khedup developing
his skills to attend the University of Wisconsin through his participation in the Information Technology Academy.
As a part of the DPI grant, the East High club has also become involved on the middle school level. “We’re going to talk about a specific branch of engineering
and do a hands-on activity related to it,” Chin said about the visits to the middle schools. “We’re trying to do that periodically throughout the year partly because
we’ve seen the benefits of the outreach that the UW students have had on our students and we felt maybe we could replicate that at the middle school level. It
also gives our high school students the chance to take on more of a leadership role.”
The UW NSBE Chapter has planted seeds on the high school level that in turn is planting seeds on the middle school level. Hopefully these efforts will reap
a harvest of African American and other engineers in the future, equipping high school students with the interest and the skills to compete in today’s
technological economy.
Xavier Buesing (l-r), Jonathan Martin, Andrew Goldsby and
Tenzin Khedup will be competing in the National Society of
Black Engineers national science competition in March.
Tenzin Khedup will be competing in the National Society of
Black Engineers national science competition in March.
By Jonathan Gramling
For the past 5-7 years, members of the UW-Madison chapter of the National Society of Black
Engineers (NSBE) have been tutoring and giving presentations about engineering to East High
School students. About two years ago, their Pre-College Initiatives (PCI) chairperson, Mitchelle
Wild, wanted to enhance the relationship and approached Cynthia Chin, an East High instructor,
about establishing a NSBE junior chapter at East.
Chin made the commitment to try and got a list of interested students together, but the
timing ended up not being right for the UW NSBE chapter. But during the 2007-2008 school
year, the chapter was successfully launched. “We were better organized and got a few students
signed up early in the year,” Chin said. “They immediately started meeting with the college
students one Saturday per month on campus. The college students shared some of their
experiences and SAT/ACT practice. They also helped sponsor our students to get to the National
conference in Florida. So there were six students who went along with one of our technology
teachers.”
The students competed in a science competition while they were there and took second
place. The East High chapter was poised to do bigger and better things.
With the aid of a Wis. DPI STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) grant, the East
For the past 5-7 years, members of the UW-Madison chapter of the National Society of Black
Engineers (NSBE) have been tutoring and giving presentations about engineering to East High
School students. About two years ago, their Pre-College Initiatives (PCI) chairperson, Mitchelle
Wild, wanted to enhance the relationship and approached Cynthia Chin, an East High instructor,
about establishing a NSBE junior chapter at East.
Chin made the commitment to try and got a list of interested students together, but the
timing ended up not being right for the UW NSBE chapter. But during the 2007-2008 school
year, the chapter was successfully launched. “We were better organized and got a few students
signed up early in the year,” Chin said. “They immediately started meeting with the college
students one Saturday per month on campus. The college students shared some of their
experiences and SAT/ACT practice. They also helped sponsor our students to get to the National
conference in Florida. So there were six students who went along with one of our technology
teachers.”
The students competed in a science competition while they were there and took second
place. The East High chapter was poised to do bigger and better things.
With the aid of a Wis. DPI STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) grant, the East