PHOTO BY JENNIFER COLTON
Every day, laptops, metal strips, wheels, wires and boxes covered the tables in Kyle Sipe’s classroom at Clara Brownell Middle School in Umatilla. Every day, seventh graders use those materials to collaborate, design and construct robots capable of autonomous movement, command response and task completion.
And when they have questions, they can ask their teacher or turn to another resource: select employees of Intel Corporation.
Through Intel’s PC Pals Program, each team of seventh-graders is able to email a question – and receive a response – from an Intel professional once a week.
On Monday, the teams talk about the question, answer and feedback from the previous week. On Tuesday, they email a question to one of their designated PC Pals. On Wednesday, they receive the answer from the employee, and on Thursday, they can ask for clarification or ask another question.
“You have to be really specific about what you want to know,” Alexander Gutierrez said. “The most serious question we’ve had asked is ‘What makes a good leader.’ I think it’s really cool.”
The opportunity to work with PC Pals stems from the success of Umatilla’s high school robotics program, class instructor Kyle Sipe said. Last year, the Umatilla FIRST Robotics Competition team qualified for and traveled to St. Louis for the championships.
“That success is really a sign to Intel that there’s something going on here, that these kids are ready for a challenge,” Sipe said. “It’s a great opportunity and hopefully this will make the students want to continue to the next level.”
Twenty-three students are enrolled in the seventh-grade robotics class; they will be the first teams to compete in a FIRST Tech Challenge on behalf of Clara Brownell Middle School when they travel to the FTC Regional Competition in Hood River on Jan. 11.
Each of the seventh graders was also part of Umatilla’s first sixth-grade robotics class. Unlike the LEGO kits used in sixth-grade, the seventh-graders work from scratch and will compete outside of the school building
“I think it’s difference because we’re using metal instead of little plastic pieces. It’s more challenging,” Josh Brown said. “Last year, we had a manual. This year, it’s all in your head.”
As part of FTC, each team must design, build and program a robot to complete a task. The teams will compete in January in for the FIRST Tech Challenge. This year’s game is “Block Party” and requires the student-built robots to pick up and carry 2-inch plastic blocks into designated areas.
Right now, most teams have a basic design in mind and a base completed. Teams use four roles – engineer, programmer, communicator and leader – to complete the process.
“It takes the whole group to win a competition. Everyone wants to be an engineer, but if you don’t communicate, you’re not going to have a very strong team,” Trent Durfey said. “The whole group has to be working together.”
The Intel employees fit into the same roles the students choose on their teams, so when the group runs into a problem, they can reach out to their PC Pals for feedback or direction.
“We have people that work with Intel, they actually built the chips that go into programming, so we’re hoping we’ll be able to program our robots so they can do everything we want them to,” Gutierrez said.
In April, the school hopes to take students to Hillsboro to tour the Intel facility and introduce them to their PC Pals face-to-face.
Mary Sollman said she is looking forward to touring Intel and continuing with robotics.
“It’s fun that we get to build things. It’s a lot different from any of our other classes,” she said. “If you sign up for robotics, you can’t just assume it will be easy. It’s fun, but it’s also really hard, and you use your brain and learn a lot.”
