October 5, 2013 9:00am – 4:00pm

SWATposium ‘13 Schedule

 

9:00 Front Entrance Registration Please sign in on arrival with your name and team number 9:15 Dining Hall Opening Speakers Dave Ellis 10:00 Student Lounge Break Snacks available or bring your own

10:10 – 10:50

District Model FIRST Can Room 104 John Hobbins

The 610 Workflow 610 Room 110A Mr. Lim

Parent Involvement 1241 Room 205 Susan Zammit-Milani

Running A Rookie Jr. FLL Team 771 Room 106 Aileen Yu & Nicole Beltran

The 7 Minute Robot Chassis (SolidWorks) 1334 Room 207/208 Andrew George, Ross Stewart, Cameron Swinoga & Arun Kamalakanthan

Scouting Strategy 781 Room 105 Nikhil Deshpande, Gregory Reid & Bradley Reid

Programming In C++ 1503 Room 203/204 Phillip Schrader

Writing A Winning Business Plan 771 Room 209 Mehr Jain & Rahina Damji

10:50 – 11:00

Break

11:00 – 11:40

Mentor Mingle 771 Room 104 Nathan Chow

VEX 1241 Room 110A Jash Javeri

Drive For Success 1325 Room 205 Feroz Balsara

Jr. FLL FIRST Can Room 106 Peggy Scott

11:40 - 12:40 Pizza Lunch $5 all you can eat pizza, a cookie and drink

2:10 Student Lounge Break 2:15 Dining Hall Closing Speaker Tom Lee, Quanser 3:00-4:00 Dining Hall Cake & Social Prizes, games, puzzles, conversation

SWATposium ‘13 Schedule

12:40 – 1:20

Rookie Tips 1241 Room 102 Arti Javeri

Test Tools For Motor and Pneumatic Subsystems 1310 Room 104 Natalia Sydorenko, Aimi Abe-Lafond & Sarah Kirke

VEX In The Classroom 771 Room 110A Sarah Sils

Creating A Brand With Media 771 Room 205 Rachel Cheng & Allison Kachala

Creating A Student Driven Team 3161 Room 106 Roger Balech, Krysta Peralto, Cameron Brushett & Micheal Szpakowicz

Electrical 1503 Room 207/208 Taylor Page

Team Administration 781 Room 105 Kush Joshi, Aaron Gordon, Kush Joshi, Mitch Walker & Alex Pagnan

Mechanical 1241 Room 203/204 Parthiv Shah

Cable Management 1325 Room 209 Bilal Qadar & Arham Chohan

1:20 – 1:30

Break

1:30 – 2:10

Sponsorship and Finance: The Bottom Line 771 Room 102 Mehr Jain

Outreach: Make It Loud 771 Room 104 Laura Lee & Ankita Sharma

How To Achieve Rookie-All Star: Designing ‘The Bot’ Rookie Style 4814 Room 110A

Typical LabView (and Electrical) Blunders 4001 Room 205 Kelvin Lin & Yoan Mastagarkov

From I to We: The Keys To Generating A Strong Team Culture 3504 Room 106 Clarisa Espinoza-Delgado, Rosanne Harrison, Simran Parwani & MacKenzie Ferris

Opening Speaker The Passion of FIRST Speaker: Dave Ellis – Director of FIRST Lego League Canada. As a graduate of University of Toronto, Dave Ellis began his teaching career with the Toronto District School Board. For the past 6 years he has been working with FIRST Canada supporting the FLL program across Canada.

Closing Speaker Robotics In The Real World Dr. Tom Lee, Chief Education Officer at Quanser, a Canadian company specializing in advanced mechatronic and robotic systems for use in engineering research and education, will present interesting case studies on the real world applications of the same concepts and techniques that you are learning through your FIRST experience. From going to space or designing the next generation of medical equipment, robotic technology has and will continue to provide exciting engineering careers and help improve the quality of life for society. Dr. Lee has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and master's and bachelor's degrees in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo. He has also served as an FRC Judge Advisor and mentor for many years.

Morning Workshops District Model Room 102 This workshop will review the District Model proposed for use in Canada next year. Come to find out how it works and implications for team planning and awards. Questions will be explored. Speaker: John Hobbins has been a lead mentor in FRC for 12 years, including 5 years in Vex robotics. He now holds the position of FRC Director of Robotics Canada. Length: 40 minutes

The 610 Workflow Room 110A Team 610 depends on a number of software packages and processes to get their work done. Mr. Lim provides an overview of how team 610 leverages Google Groups/Drive/Forms/Code, Trello, Windows File Sharing, HTTP Commander, WordPress, SolidWorks, VisualMill, SVN to support the day-to-day processes of running an FRC team. Speaker: Mr. Lim is a teacher at the Crescent School in Toronto, Ontario. He is a mentor for the Strategy, Energy Systems and Programming sub-teams for Team 610. Length: 40 minutes

Parent Involvement Room 205 Parent engagement is vital to team and direct student’s success! This workshop will give students, parents and mentors an understanding on how to get parents involved in your local robotics teams and will share best practices of processes that enable sustainability and growth regarding parent involvement. Speaker: Susan Zammit-Milani is currently an active mentor with FIRST Team 1241 and has been for two years. Susan has coached the Chairman’s Presentation Team along with leading the Website Team, and is currently involved with various outreach initiatives. Susan brings 17+ years of management, audit and operations experience. She currently holds a position at GE Healthcare, a division of General Electric as a Manager, Performance & Compliance. Length: 40 minutes

Running A Rookie Jr. FLL Team Room 106 You can get your own team up and running in no time with these handy tips. Try Lego Serious Play (LSP) for yourself in this handson component. Other topics covered will be the core values, the research project, Show Me poster, Where to Share and the model itself. Ideas will be given on how to run successful practices. I might change this description after peggy scott gets back to me Speaker: Aileen Yu, SWAT member since grade 8, has been working with Jr FLL since 2010. Currently in grade 12, she serves as the Mechanical Lead on SWAT and has previously mentored both Jr FLL and VEX teams. She plans on studying engineering in university next fall. Nicole Beltran has been involved in FIRST for two years now, in Jr. FLL, FLL, and FRC. She has mentored both in Jr. FLL and FLL in those 2 years. This year she is looking forward to being the Jr. FLL lead and help mentor the little ones again. Length: 40 minutes

Mentor Mingle Room 102 This session gives mentors the chance to come together and have an open discussion, while drinking coffee and having snacks. There is no presentation planned, it is purely a social event. If there are too many awkward pauses, the facilitator will ask participants to play a group session of Heads Up on his iPhone. The goal of this session is to let mentors get better acquainted with one another, share mentoring experiences, and drink coffee while having snacks. Coffee and snacks will be provided. Speaker: Nathan Chow is the physics teacher at St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn School and in his third year as a mentor on SWAT 771. He graduated from the University of Waterloo’s Honours Physics program and holds an M.Sc. for research in the area of Theoretical Cosmology. He is an avid rock climber and enjoys problem solving at every level, from the very technical nitty-gritty to the nebulously abstract. Some say he’s funny, while others describe him incorrectly. Length: 40 minutes

Introduction Into VEX Robotics Room 110A This workshop will cover the basics to competing in the VEX Robotics Competition. Students will learn how to start and effectively run a team over the course of a year. Students will also learn about basic mechanisms, system design, and building with Vex. Speaker: Jash Javeri is currently in his 2nd year at Ryerson University studying Aerospace Engineering. Jash has taken a variety of leadership roles throughout his 3 years as a student of FIRST and VEX Team 1241. During his senior year he was the co-captain for FIRST Team 1241 and a Dean’s list nominee. He is currently the VEX mentor lead as well as a mentor for the mechanical and design subgroups for FIRST Team 1241. Length: 40 minutes

Drive For Success Room 201 With a strong drive team, any robot can have amazing results! In this talk aimed for members with all levels of FRC experience, we will explore practices that can optimize the performance of your drive team. We will cover topics such as the role of a coach, driver selection and training, and human player training. Speaker: Feroz Balsara has been involved with FIRST for over 6 years, and is studying Mechatronics Engineering at Ryerson University. He is currently the co-founder and co-captain of R3, Ryerson’s VEXU team, and serves as a strategy and design mentor for FIRST Team 1325 Inverse Paradox. Length: 40 minutes

Jr. FLL Room 106 In this workshop, the basics of Jr. FLL will be covered such as the component of the research and build process. There will also be some practical and hands-on activities to familiarize attendees with everything and anything Jr. FLL. This also includes the exciting programming software – WeDo. Ways to incorporate Jr. FLL into curriculums will also be explored.

Speaker: Peggy Scott is the Director of Jr. FLL in Canada. She has started FIRST Lego League teams too numerous to mention and is often a head referee at FIRST Lego League tournaments. She works tirelessly to share her enthusiasm for FIRST and has been honored by her community, Oakville, as a FIRST Robotics Hero. Length: 40 minutes

The 7 Minute Robot Chassis (SolidWorks) Room 207/208 This presentation outlines everything from the basics of 3D design to the advanced features of SolidWorks all in the context of FIRST Robotics, as well as outlining how 3D printing can help you streamline your design process. We close with tips and tricks on how to get your design from an idea to a finished part as fast as possible. Speaker: Andrew George, grade 12, 1334, head of design. Ross Stewart, grade 12, 1334, build and design team. Cameron Swinoga, grade 12, 1334, former captain, head of programming and 3D printing. Arun Kamalakanthan, grade 12, 1334, programming team. Length: 80 minutes

Scouting Strategy Room 105 Learn how to create effective scouting systems and use them to their full potential in the heat of competition.    Speaker: Nikhil Deshpande’s experience with databases and logical reasoning led him to becoming Team 781's Scouting Lead for Rebound Rumble. Gregory Reid and his ability to create efficient and highly effective scouting systems is what made him stand out as Team 781's Scouting Lead for Ultimate Ascent! Bradley Reid's natural love for problem solving pushed him to becoming Team 781's Build Captain in 2012/2013. Length: 80 minutes

Programming in C++ Room 203/204 This session is an introduction to programming an FRC robot in C++ and will give attendees the chance to try programming a FRC robot. The various parts of the C++ language are brought to the user's attention and how they are used in FIRST programming. The targeted audience are students and mentors who are interested to learn what is involved in getting a robot up and running and how to start. Speaker: Philipp Schrader studied Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He is currently employed at Nuvation Research as an Embedded Firmware Engineer. He has been mentoring 1503, Spartonics, since 2010. His primary focus is mentoring the programming team along with Tom Brown. Length: 80 minutes

Writing A Winning Business Plan Room 209 Attendees will be given the chance to listen to a short presentation on how to best create a successful business plan. Using this information, participants will then split up into small groups and design a business plan. Each group's business plan will be presented to the judges, and the winner will get a prize! Speaker: Mehr Jain has been involved with business team of SWAT 771 since the past four years. For the past two years she has been working with Jessica and Melanie Miller, the past business co-leaders, and is the new business leader for the team. Rahina Damji has been on the team for two years. She has been a part of the business team for a year and has worked with Melanie and Jessica Miller, the past business leads. This year, she is very excited to be leading the business team. Length: 80 minutes

Afternoon Workshops

Rookie Tips Room 102 This workshop will provide a detailed review of 10 Steps for Rookie Success for FRC Rookie teams. The whole year; pre-season, build season, and post competition season will be reviewed in detail providing starting points and season end points for teams. Team structure, critical timelines and parent involvement will be discussed. Speaker: Arti Javeri is currently part of the leadership team for FIRST Team 1241 and has been a mentor for over four years. Arti has been instrumental in demonstrating to students the importance of marketing, communications, processes and organizing community outreach in addition to setting up industry, government and business links for team 1241. Arti brings 15+ years of management and operations experience. She currently works at Hewlett Packard Canada as the Americas Business Operations Manager. Length: 40 minutes

Test Tools for Motor and Pneumatic Subsystems Room 104 Over the years Runnymede Robotics (1310) has developed a simple but very effective "tool box" of tools for testing (or emergency debugging) of motor and pneumatic based robot subsystems assemblies without requiring use of the Crio. These tools allow the team to verify subsystem wiring and behavior long before the programming code is available. Also, one tool is extremely effective in giving warning of an overloaded or damaged motor in seconds with no wiring changes. We expect to be able to demo most of the tools. Speaker: Sarah Kirke - Grade 11 Masters Program student, 3rd year on team, team co-captain for this year. Worked in construction, EP, promotions, fund raising and scouting Natalia Sydorenko - Grade 12 Masters Program student, team co-captain this year, 4th year on the team, past student head of the electrical and pneumatics (EP) team Aimi Abe-Lafond - Grade 11 Masters Program student, student head of EP team and construction. Safety Captain at Championships Length: 40 minutes

VEX In The Classroom Room 110A Interested in finding out ways to bring VEX into the classroom? We will explore one approach and discuss successes and potential pitfalls to avoid. Links to curriculum and teacher strategies will be shared. Questions will be entertained. Speaker: Sarah Sils graduated as an engineer from Michigan State University and is proud to have mentored SWAT 771 for the past 5 years. She has brought Jr.FLL and VEX into the school and loves all things FIRST. She is much too proud to mention winning the Woody Flowers award last year although she has stopped carrying it around with her.  Length: 40 minutes

Creating A Brand With Media Room 205 “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” – Jim Morrison Learn how to control the mind of others around you with branding and social media techniques to help spread the word of FIRST. Learn tips on how to promote your team online through photography, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Speaker: Allison Kachala and Rachel Cheng have been active members of SWAT 771 for 5 years. They have been involved in many areas of the team including mechanical and media, but have always excelled in branding and design.  Length: 40 minutes

Creating A Student Driven Team Room 106 Just as the title suggests, this workshop is focused on creating a student driven team. From designing and manufacturing to team organization and outreach, mentors and team leaders will learn how to encourage their members to take on leadership roles. Speaker: Roger Balech - Lead Mentor on Team 3161 Tronic Titans, Physics and Math Teacher at Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School. Krysta Peralto - Captain's Advisor on Team 3161, current grade 12 student at Holy Trinity Cameron Brushett and Michael (Spok) Szpakowicz - Team 3161's 2013 Co-captains, current grade 12 and 11 students at Iroquois Ridge and Holy Trinity Length: 40 minutes

Sponsorship and Finance: The Bottom Line Room 102 Attendees will be given the chance to listen to a short presentation on branding, marketing, how to gain sponsors, as well as some information on financial planning. Participants will also be given the chance to get started on their search for sponsors by identifying potential sponsors and starting on a brief presentation for your sponsors. Speaker: Mehr Jain has been involved with business team of SWAT 771 since the past four years. For the past two years she has been working with Jessica and Melanie Miller, the past business co-leaders, and is the new business leader for the team. Length: 40 minutes

Outreach: Make It Loud Room 104 How to spread the word of FIRST? This is the ultimate, unanswered question of every team. This session will cover the basics and share tips on how to best reach out to the community, spread STEM and raise awareness of FIRST. Speaker: Ankita Sharma and Laura Lee are co-captains of SWAT 771. They have both played key roles in SWAT’s success in the past few years, winning 2 Regional Engineering Inspiration awards and 2 Regional Chairman’s Award. In their senior year, they are continually expanding SWAT’s outreach, inspiring others and promoting STEM. This dynamic duo are never seen apart, as they whisk around promoting STEM. There is no problem too big or small for this duo to solve (but please don’t challenge this).  Length: 40 minutes

How To Achieve Rookie-All Star: Designing ‘The Bot’ Rookie Style Room 110A Description: Teaching Rookie-Teams how to be as successful as possible within their limited means. Examples from our season and a look back into some of the most successful rookie seasons of other teams (i.e. 4334). Speaker: COMING SOON Length: 40 minutes

Typical LabView (and Electrical) Blunder Room 205 This session will describe some of the common rookie and second year team mistakes that we have made in Labview. We have also made electrical mistakes. Hopefully we can help you avoid making the same types of errors. Speaker: Kelvin Lin and Yoan Mastagarkov are grade 12 and 10 students respectively at St. Robert CHS. Both are important members of FRC Team 4001 and have worked on more than a couple of sub teams last year. Length: 40 minutes

From I to We: The Keys To Generating A Strong Team Culture Room 106 Join us at our workshop to explore how to develop a strong team culture. Whether you are building a robot or presenting at an outreach event, every FIRST robotics team needs a strong team culture to be successful! This interactive workshop will give you tips on how to create and maintain a strong foundation for the team, a collaborative team environment, and develop an unifying team image. Speaker: Clarisa Espinoza-Delgado, The Ellis School, 10th grade, 2nd year on the team. Rosanne Harrison, Seneca Valley High School, 12th grade, 3rd year on the team Simran Parwani, Fox Chapel Area High School, 11th grade, 2nd year on the team MacKenzie Ferris, The Ellis School, 11th grade, 3rd year on the team. Length: 40 minutes  

Electrical Room 207/208 Wiring your robot can be one of the most confounding tasks of build season. Often left to the final minutes before ship, many mistakes can be made that aren't caught until your first event inspection, or even worse when your robot is sitting disabled on the practice field releasing its ever-so-crucial magic blue smoke. This hour-and-a-half presentation will help you understand the components of your robots electrical system and how to properly and safely connect them in a way that will keep your motors turning for many regionals to come. Speaker: Taylor Page started his robotics career in 2008 as a humble wizard-in-training at Westlane Secondary School by joining 1503 to make his life-long dream of sudden, but inevitable world-domination come true. He kept mentoring the team throughout his eons of attending Photonics classes at Niagara College. Since graduating in 2012 he now builds cameras for helicopters and other shiny things as an Electro-Optic Technician at L-3 Wescam in Burlington. Length: 80 minutes  

Team Administration Room 105 Administration is the backbone of any FRC team. Team 781 will teach you how to get the most out of your team's administrative efforts. Speaker: After migrating towards the web and awards crew on Team 781, Kush Joshi has found the spot on the team that he loves to work on – Administrative Captain of Team 781 for this year! Aaron Gordon is one of the best programmers that Team 781 has ever seen. Now serving as the Programming Lead, Aaron has also displayed major contributions to the Admin side. Mitch Walker is known for his enthusiasm and drive towards everything that happens in FIRST. He has proven himself to be a great asset for the Admin side as a whole! Alex Pagnan has made a big impact on the Kinetic Knights. As the new Awards Lead, he will be able to do fantastic things! Length: 80 minutes

Mechanical Room 203/204 The workshop will cover basic concepts of mechanisms commonly used in FRC: Through the workshop the student will learn about these mechanisms, the advantages and disadvantages of each mechanism and how to design them. The second part of the workshop will educate the student about common motors used in FRC and will cover concepts of Motor Torque and Speed. The workshop will also cover basic concepts on gears, sprockets and how to determine gear ratios for specific applications. Speaker: Parthiv Shah is one of the Lead Design Mentors on Team 1241. Parthiv supports the students in the Design sub-team in the formulation and selection of design concepts, facilitates the creation of 2D and 3D CAD models. Parthiv is a graduate of the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering. He currently works as an Associate HVAC Controls Engineer at Honeywell International. Length: 80 minutes  

Cable Management Room 104 Don’t you hate when the wiring in your robot is so messy you can’t troubleshoot, or when your robot or sensors just won’t work? This workshop’s sole purpose is to solve all of these issues. We will look at different ways to mount electronics and route cable, how to label and keep track of PWM allocations, and lastly how to deal with common and not so common problems. Afterwards there will be a question period to answer questions about the previously said topics and general electronics. Speaker: Bilal Qadar is a grade 11 student on FRC Team 1325. He joined the team in grade 9, and has worked his way up to the position of Electrical Lead. Arham Chohan is a grade 10 member of FRC Team 1325. He joined the team in grade 9 and FIRST has inspired him to be more involved in his and made him fall in love with robotics. Length: 80 minutes