High School Student with STEM experience seeking Internship or independent project

[health...@gmail.com]

My son Reynor is a high school senior with strong STEM skills looking to assist on a project or start his own for Senior Project in spring and or summer internship. Would a membership like that be eligible?  Anyone need free help on a project?

[Ross Bochnek]

We gather every Tuesday at Shaker Launch House at 7pm.  We have meetings every other week, including tomorrow, 11/18/14.  As a group, we have many projects going on simultaneously.  Currently, we have 4 CNC Electromechanics projects, with cross-pollenation of team members.  All of these 4 projects are a "group" project; both in the sense that they each have several group members collaborating on them, but also because the intention of these particular projects is to keep the products in-house when they are completed so that we can all use them later.  We all assist each other, but there's no guarantee of a project having a single point of contact, or a continuous lifespan of several months in a row.  Makers Alliance is very educationally oriented, and very supportive of individual projects in addition to group projects.  If Reynor is interested in building his own 3D Printer, CNC machine, or robot, he could shadow right away with one of our teams and in the Spring or Summer, build his own with the use of our facilities and advice.  Or, he might simply find inspiration in one of our members' individual projects.  If he has an idea that other people are interested in, he can lead his own project.  But, if school credit is on the line, Reynor might find it too stressful to just be an assistant on a project that he's not leading, since these projects are mostly our members' hobbies.  While we'll REALLY appreciate his help, if he is relying on one of us to be engaged with a single project for an entire semester, there's no guarantee that the person evaluating him in an internship role won't randomly move to Timbuktu to program a glass elevator or something.  So yeah, look for us in the WAY front or the WAY back of the Shaker Launch House building Tuesdays at 7pm.  Also, if he wants to help us build a CNC router table or plasma cutter to keep at Makers Alliance, I know of a fantastic engineer who has great design suggestions, we already have lots of parts for it, and Reynor could still come in and use it.  So, if the project is the right fit, and it's something that Makers Alliance will get to keep, Reynor may not have to spend much or perhaps anything, depending on how much access he wants to our space beyond Tuesdays and occasional Saturdays; with the added bonus of him not having to find a place to store it when he's done.  As someone who has done a Senior Project in Highschool, I'd say, Reynor should choose something that he really wants to do, and I'm sure we'll be able to help him somehow make it a reality; even if it's only to help him figure out what that project is!

[health...@gmail.com]

Wow, right up his alley! He is very excited.  School credit not a big deal - no real grade, they just need a plan and project.  I am checking with him to see which which Tuesday he has less homework to come. We may come tonight for a bit if homework allows.  Thanks

[Ross Bochnek]

Great!  My Senior Project experience was amazing!

[Ross Bochnek]

Reynor sounded interested in prosthetics.  I recommend him researching Open Source Prosthetics.  If he's more interested in the physics, mechanics, and human interface side of robotics, he can just right into those areas without spending days or weeks on electronics or code.  He can probably download free models of prosthetics and bring them to Thinkbox at CWRU to 3D print them out.  Then, he can play with physics, mechanics, and even 3D modeling and printing.  He only needs to get into something like Arduinos when he's ready to control motor and/or read sensors.  Therefore, with his interest in physics, he easily make an awesome Senior Project without ever having to add electronics or programming.  In the future, he can learn those skills, and/or easily be able to find electronics and programming collaborators eager to find someone who actually enjoys, understands, and has skills in physics and mechanical engineering.     

[15rli...@gmail.com]

Hello again, Ross

This is Reynor. Thanks again for the advice and help you gave when I visited you all last. I'm still doing some work in preparation for my senior project. Among this work, I have to select someone to be my sponsor, a sponsor essentially being a supervisor to the senior. A sponsor ideally would be a person in the community that volunteers to help work on the project and meets with the participant daily. I wouldn’t want to be a burden and require so much of your time and I understand how providing aid daily could get to be too much. An option that might be easier to handle is to have the main sponsor “appoint” others to fill in any time they’re not available. I was wondering if you might do me the favor of being my sponsor. Although the definition of "Community Sponsor" is stated above, the only thing I would really ask of you is a signature as proof of my daily progress. I understand if you wouldn't be able to serve as my sponsor though, so I've been talking with the chief learning officer of the launch house to see if he might be able to help. If you have any further questions for me regarding details, I would be happy to help.

And also would you happen to have an email to which I could address you directly?

Thank you for your consideration,

Reynor Lindsay

[Ross Bochnek]

Thanks Raynor, I'm honored!  My email is ro...@rehumanizing.us, and I'd like to take a day to think about it.  Would it be possible to do some of our checkins using a Google Hangout or Skype?

[Ross Bochnek]

Is it only on weekdays? I would like to do this, and  I would be at Launch House some days, and perhaps we could meet on Chagrin in Beachwood some days.  

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[15rli...@gmail.com]

I'm to work on the project daily for about 6 hours(unless something such as illness or a review for an AP exam prevents me from participating on some day(s) ) essentially from the end of April to the end of May. I attached two documents that have the exact information. Although I have to do work on the project daily, it doesn't mean I have to specifically be at the LaunchHouse all those days, so meeting elsewhere on occasion shouldn't be a problem(I would just need to record when such events happen essentially).

The following forms are blank copies that illustrate what information my advisors would ask for just to let you know. As for what my goals and activities are, I've also attached a filled out copy of the "Goals and Activities Planning Sheet".

If the pencil comes out unreadable on the sheet I can give you a typed copy instead.

[15rli...@gmail.com]

A clarification of what I said earlier: I have to work at least 5 days a week, they can be weekdays, or a combination of weekdays and the weekend, but no, I don't have to work on the weekend

[Joe ODonnell]

 Good luck on your project, this is exactly the right type of learning preparation that's needed for the work of the future. The evidence is very strong by this

point that robots and artificial intelligence will start doing many jobs for humans within only a few years.

 Here are a few thoughts, which can be summed up as 'limit the scope of the project as much as possible.' Technology projects are fun, and also very significant

for the future. But they often require a greater time, work and focus commitment than expected. This is because the sophistication level of the technology and engineering

concepts available to apply today, were built up over hundreds of years, and thus take time to learn and learn how to work with. Because of that, and this is borne

out by the experience of many people working in technology, the best approach to a project is to keep the scope as limited as possible, and set definite weekly

goal steps leading to a finished project within perhaps 1-2 months. Getting to a definite finished project also often turns out to be the best way to learn in general.

 Creating a biomimicry based robot for anything but fish like robots, is considered to be very difficult. The leading robot in the darpa challenge originally had biomimc based 'muscles',

but that turned out to be too difficult to control so they switched to a more pure engineering approach: 

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/schaft-robot-company-bought-by-google-darpa-robotics-challenge-winner

 Here is a biomimic based fish like bot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPGgl5VH5go

Here are some thoughts on a schedule for the project:

1. make the project goal an arm with 2 degrees of freedom. The hand can be a hook, at a minimum to begin with.

2. if you need a biomimic aspect to the project, calculate the movement path of a cat's elbow joint, do the same for the project arm, and compare the two.

3. To carry this out with a full understanding of what the arm is doing, you will need to learn several basic areas of technology. Devote each week

to learning a given area, with an engineering goal step for the arm that week acting as a lab exercise.

4. make sure to stay on schedule, so the complete complex project can be finished within 1-2 months. It's important to take notes and pictures every day,

especially for all measurements, so this information can later be used for the write up. Putting your project on a blog is also good for networking,

such as for College.

The basic areas and engineering goal steps for those areas, are:

Week 1. The basics of levers and gears:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAWxZRuBXtw

-research how to calculate the movement path, speed and force of an arm with 2 degrees of freedom, and carry that out for both your arm and for a cats elbow.

You will then work on building a robot arm for several weeks to match your calculations, and later make measurements of the arm to see how well what you built matched your calculation goals.

The arm will look like an elbow joint, attached to a shoulder that can yaw rotate 360 degrees. The hand will be a hook, to be upgraded to pincher fingers if you have time.

If you go really fast you may have time to add a third degree of freedom, to allow the shoulder joint to pitch rotate the arm 90 degrees.

Week 2. Construct the arm, using a small manual hand crank instead of an electric motor.
-By building the basic mechanical infrastructure of the arm first, your using an approach from software that involves 'mocking up' what the product looks like, and filling in the details after that.

This combines both 'top down' and 'bottom up' engineering/construction approaches, and tends to keep projects on time and within a definite scope.

Week 3. Learn to control an electric motor with an Arduino.

-various subtasks involved in doing this will be explained later.

Week 4. Attach the motor to the arm infrastructure, and make measurements of how the system performs.

-Attach a second motor to enable the second degree of freedom.

Week 5. Work on improving the code that controls the arm, possibly add a sensor.

Week 6. Write up the project and measurement experiments.

Even if you have 2 months to carry out the project, it's a good idea to give yourself 2 weeks of extra time, 

to allow for goal steps that end up taking longer than a week to carry out.

Each of these steps involves definite and specific learning,building and experimentation tasks, that are well described

in various books and videos. The best plan would be to stick to those definite tasks, and to talk with experienced

people to find out what they are. Ask on this list, and also ask for help at Cleveland State University and Case western University

as needed.

In order to coordinate the large amount of information, tasks and people that will be involved in your project,

sign for a free trial of the Jira project management software: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Use this software to track information, goals and assign tasks, to both yourself and your helpers.

This is a very commonly used project management system for technology projects of all types,

and coordinates work among people who don't meet in person every day.

This is a very ambitious project, so it would be good to start soon and work energetically on it.

You will need to have a large amount of initiative every week, to carry out finding material to learn from,

learning it, building with it, and finding whatever help you need each week. It will be challenging,

but just keep remembering the reward is very high-a great definite start on the work of the future.

 Each week aim to complete your goals as early in the week as possible, and use the rest of the week to improve on what you have.

That way your chances of finishing on time with a high quality project are much higher. I would stick to the basics,

and leave extended extracurricular research (like on advanced biomimicry) to after the project is completed.

[Ross Bochnek]

Hi Reynor,

Regarding biomimicry, check out NiTinol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFUoYHC_YQ

NITinol is a Nickel Titanium alloy, also knows as Muscle Wire!  It's a so-called Smart Material in the category of Shape Memory Alloys (SMA).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_titanium

You can incorporate it into a biologically-inspired design, and program a microcontroller to electrically control the flow of electricity into various pieces of SMA.  Various limb designs with SMA incorporated into them, along with how you sequence their subtle electrical heating, will produce a variety of effects and gaits.  The Wikipedia page link above lists many applications for NiTinol.  You can shape it into springs, use conventional springs to provide return forces, and lots more!

As I've said, I exhibited my own Senior Project at OHS 20 years ago.  We were set up in the Auditorium, and I did a morphing video between yearbook photos of some of my classmates, and presented it on a computer.  With that in mind, I think it would be not only acceptable, but probably preferable to plan on exhibiting your biomimicry design alongside a computer screen that can show your program running in real-time, so people could see what's going on "behind the scenes".  Of course, in a real-world application, there would be no screen, and the circuit would be tiny.  But not only is it easier to demonstrate how your project actually works by having a computer and monitor there running your project demo, it's much easier to program the microcontroller with it tethered to a computer!  

I can teach you a VERY simple graphical way to program the microcontroller in a tethered configuration that visually indicates on the screen, which pieces of your code are currently executing.  This will help both you to program your project, as well as an observer on demo day, to see what is happening inside your code while they watch what your physical design is doing!  This will satisfy both your goals of programming and using a microcontroller, while allowing you to spend a lot more of your time working out your physical prototypes.  This will really help place your own attention, and your project's emphasis where you want it: biomimicry and physics.  Assembling the basic program will go quickly, and then you can reuse that program during your experiments, since you can then simply tweak the timings within your basic program to create different movements.  

You might want to take a modular approach to your physical designs by using 2 layers of pegboard, or drill holes in a block or board.  You can then create different designs by moving wooden pegs around to different holes, and your pegs can contain notches, where you can attach various materials.  The material can include various lengths of muscle wire, springs, wires of various rigidity, various elastic materials, etc. to create different limb designs.  I can advise you how to light the pegboard in such a way that you can easily document your designs with both photographs and videos.  There are also ways to take still and moving screen captures of your various screen-based programs.  These still and moving images can, at some point, be edited into different videos to show the "evolution" of your designs!

SMAs can be found in many formats; wires, strips, etc.  The nickname muscle wire is very appropriate.  Its ability to contract and expand works like biological muscles, and looks a bit like them too.  You might even get to play with mimicking different types of muscles.  SMAs also come in various thicknesses, which will affect their physical behaviors.  It's rather inexpensive, and you can find sample packs of a few different thicknesses.  You can really get into the physics and combine SMAs with the mechanics of springs, levers, torque, etc.  I would even venture to say that SMAs are nanomaterials, since my understanding is that they reliably operate on a molecular scale. The Wikipedia page gets a bit into that. 

You will be able to avoid motors and gears altogether, while developing with a futuristic field of nanomaterials.  That may be hyperbolic of me to say, and I leave it to your determination, but I think you'll find it to ring true.  Anyway, by using silent materials in linear shapes, rather than using buzzing, rotating motors, you will more easily be able to focus peoples' attention on the influence of biology on your project.  Finally, I find it relevant to point out that the original concept of Robots was biologically-based.  Karel Capek's stage play R.U.R. coined the term Robot, and the title is an acronym for Rossum's Universal Robots. These original robot concepts didn't use motors; they were grown, in a process that predated contemporary notions of bioengineering.

[Tara Tiger Brown]

We are running a virtual summer camp focused on Minecraft. One of the tracks is programming in-game. We are looking for volunteer HS students. The team includes educators, technologists, etc. and there is a robust curriculum with learning outcomes. Let me know if he plays MC and I'll send more info.

[Reynor Lindsay]

I do play the game and that sounds like It would be a fun and rewarding experience, thank you. Apologies for such a late reply.

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