Benson Polytechnic High School Alumni Association

In February and March, the Benson Robotics club fielded two teams in
the FTC (FIRST Technical Challenge) state championships and one team
in the FRC (FIRST Robotics Challenge) championships.

The two FTC teams each came away with a first place award.  Team
187 won the first place Connect Award, which honors the team that
did the best job promoting robotics and helping other teams and
reaching out to the community.

Team 267 won the first place Innovate Award, which honors superior
creativity and inventiveness in the design and engineering of their
robot.  In fact, this is the third year in a row that a Benson team
has won the first place Innovate Award.

See http://benson267.blogspot.com/

These teams are coached and helped by volunteers who are alumni (me),
parents (Jeff) and friends (Galen).  Zeno Idzerda is the school representative
and Eduardo Rubio helped out a lot too.  We thank all those people, and
many more, who helped Benson achieve these triumphs.

John DeLacy (class of 1966)

Thanks for posting this John.  I was wondering if we had anything like this at Benson.  Is this a class or an after school club? 

I noticed in team 267’s blog that team consists of two HOSA majors, a Computer Science major and an Electronics major.  Whether they know it or not, this is a great example of the type of diverse team they would work with in industry.  If the HOSA members continue to enjoy mechanical design, they might consider pursuing biomedical engineering in college.  As I was graduating, BME was the hot new major. (http://www.bme.gatech.edu/)

Please keep us (the alumni) updated on what you guys have going on and if you could use any graduate support($$$).  I’m sure I’m not the only person following this forum that would be interested.

The Benson Robotics club is an after-school activity.  This is the third year it has been in existence.  The first two years, it was supported by Jeff (a parent) and me (a volunteer and alumni).  In the third year, we have had school support and a very energetic teacher (Zeno Idzerda) who helped us and got grant money, rooms to meet in, shop access, etc.  Unfortunately, Benson has decided to let him go at the end of this year, so for next year, we are in limbo.  I have been talking to Barry Phillip, a Vice Principal, to try to keep some continuity to the program.

One idea we had with Zeno was to make the program part of the curriculum, but now with Zeno’s leaving that won’t happen.  It would be nice…

Yes, the diversity and range of talents and interests in the team is exceptional.  It shows how much robotics crosses disciplines and subjects.  It can teach kids so much in so many areas.

One of the freshman girls, who wants to go into the Health Occupation major, actually finished building and programmed the robot for team 267 when the other kids (read boys) lost interest and lost motivation.  She single-handedly got the robot working for the first scrimmage we attended, and defined the way the robot worked for the rest of the tournament.  I’m trying to convince her that engineering and math might be of interest to her also.

Come and visit us at the Tech Show - April 23 and 24.  We will have all our robots on display and working in the cafeteria (at least that is the current location they have given us).

John

As far as support for the Benson Robotics Club goes, donations are very welcome and needed.  Much of the expense in the last three years has been shouldered by volunteers and parents.  Anyone can send a check to Benson, made out to Benson and with “For Benson Robotics Club” in the memo field.

Thanks in advance.

John