Union wins Robot Rivals
Mechanical engineering students Marissa Post ’04, Jason Fishner ’05, and Adam Retersdorf ’04 came out on top on the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) TV Network’s new show, Robot Rivals.
Union was one of fourteen colleges that competed on Robot Rivals, which pits
student teams in a grueling competition to build a robot to complete a task. Each team gets access to the show’s “robot laboratory” containing all kinds of components, parts, motors, wheels, and one “household item” such as a refrigerator. Teams are given a time limit in which to design, build, and prepare their robots to compete; they also have the assistance of an “expert” in the robotics or engineering fields.
Union won the entire competition after defeating Dartmouth, Princeton, the University of Rochester, and, in the final competition, the University of Pittsburgh. The championship match involved building a robot to maneuver through a maze and collect keys to unlock a door. The Union team’s other winning robots had to rake leaves,
pick vegetables, and play
floor hockey.
“This competition was a great opportunity for our engineering students to show that they are some of the brightest in the nation,” said Robert Balmer, dean of engineering. “The producers of the show researched the best engineering colleges in the country and, of course, found Union to be one of them.”
As champion, the College received the J.F. Engelberger Trophy, which is presented by the “father of industrial robotics” himself, and a $2,000 prize awarded to the Robotics Club.
Post, the team captain, is a senior from Shakopee, Minn. Fishner is from Long Valley, N.J.; Retersdorf is from Mayfield, N.Y., and alternate Ben Porteus is a junior from South Wellfleet, Mass.
The episodes featuring the Union team were televised throughout May and June.
Success becomes mechanical
Success by Union students at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers meetings seems to be getting, well, mechanical.
For the third year in a row, a Union student-this year, senior Tim Smith-took top honors in the oral competition at the ASME Regional
Student Conference at the University of Rochester (the region includes forty-six colleges and universities in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia). Katie Arthur won the poster competition, and Marissa Post took second in the oral competition.
“The consistent success of Union students must be attributed to more than random chance,” said Prof. Frank Wicks, noting that the probability of three consecutive wins by a college would be about one in 100,000. “It is the result of outstanding students who are provided with excellent research projects, facilities, staff support, and faculty advising.”
Smith, advised by Prof. Brad Bruno, spoke on “The Development of the Hydrogen Fueled Internal Combustion Engine.” He took home a $300 prize and an invitation to compete for $2,000 at the ASME International Congress in Anaheim in November.
Arthur, advised by Prof. Ann Anderson, gave her
winning poster on “Too Hot to Handle: An Investigation into Safe Touch Temperatures.” Post, advised by Anderson and Prof. Mary Carroll of the Chemistry Department, spoke on “Density Dependence in Young’s Modulus in Silica Gels.”
Previous winners of the
oral competition were
Smitesh Bakrania ’03 and David Chapin ’02.
Walking challenge brings international competition
The phrase “Walk This Way” had special meaning for
students from nineteen colleges and universities from across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico who were on campus this spring for the Society of Automotive Engineers’ annual Walking Robot Challenge.
Student teams designed and built their robots, which operate by a self-contained power source. During the two-day competition, the machines performed in six events ranging from a simple “dash” to autonomously traversing an obstacle course. A panel of judges scored the machines on their components, construction, and “intelligence,” as well as performance during the tasks. Entrants also had to submit a technical paper.
This was the first time the College hosted the prestigious international event, and, perhaps acting the role of gracious host, the Dutchmen’s six-legged robot was an early casualty. Instead of walking for twenty-seven feet, the Union robot, called “Dutchbot,” flopped to the ground. After an analysis, Dutchbot’s designers and crew-seniors Adam Retersdorf, Jason Cook, and Craig Johnson-said the machine had too much weight for its motors, causing it to stall.
Despite the early departure, the three agreed that the experience was a valuable lesson in real-world applications.
The nineteen colleges sent twenty-two teams, with the winner coming from Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes in Mexico. Union finished sixteenth, just behind York College of Pennsylvania and ahead of ahead of Washington State University. And, just for the record, none of the robots was able to finish all of the events.
Union team wins elevator pitch;
U-Start adds another student company
Impermeable Molding Company, a company founded by Union students and housed in the College’s U-Start Business Incubator, won the “elevator pitch” contest in this spring’s Tech Valley Collegiate Business Plan Competition.
To qualify for the two-minute contest, which simulates a brief elevator ride with a venture capitalist, the teams had to be one of five semi-finalists in the overall business plan competition. The Union team won $1,000.
Impermeable Molding was founded this year to produce environmentally friendly tanks for the storage of various fluids such as oil and gasoline. Union students in the College’s Entrepreneurship Club have been working on this new business idea, using a state-of-the-art plastic resin from the Cyclics Corporation of Schenectady, founded by alumni John Ciovacco ’87 and Ted Eveleth ’87.
Other partners in Impermeable Molding are Bobby Syed ’03, chief executive officer, co-founder and former president of the Entrepreneurship Club; Josh Fiorini ’04, chief financial officer, co-founder and vice president of the Entrepreneurship Club; Brian Lindenberg ’05, chief operating officer; Kerem Kacel ’03, chief information officer; and Brett Durie ’04, chief technical officer. Junior Lucas Englehart, chief marketing officer, did the elevator pitch on behalf of the six-member company.
“We are extremely proud
of our team’s work,” said Jon Lemelin, executive director of the U-Start Incubator and an advisor to the team. “This is the first time a team from Union has entered the competition. To qualify as a semi-finalist, the Union team outperformed thirty other
student teams.”
The business plan competition was sponsored by the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management and Technology. The annual competition is open to full-time students at area colleges and universities.
Besides Lemelin and Ciovacco, the club’s advisors are Y.F. King Wang, marketing director of Americas for Cyclics Corporation; Professor Hal Fried, economics; Mike O’Hara, director of development; and Mel Chudzik, dean of the School of Management of the Graduate College of Union University.
In another U-Start news note, three students pursuing degrees in medicine, computer science, and philosophy have founded a new company and become tenants in the U-Start Business Incubator. Their firm, Exousia Health, Inc., develops new software platforms and application services to assist the healthcare industry with emergency preparedness and remediation.
The students, all juniors, are Christopher Macomber, chief executive officer; Edward Maas, director of technology; and Jeffrey Marshall, director of communications. Macomber is in the rigorous Leadership in Medicine Program, through which students earn a B.S. from Union, an M.B.A. from the Graduate College of Union University, and an M.D. from Albany Medical College. He founded Exousia to promote the interest of patients and to improve communication within the health care sector.
Union pitches in with local schools
Every year, students and faculty from the College provide hours of guidance to local secondary school students in a variety of ways. Here are some examples from this spring:
Two teams of high school and middle school students mentored by Union students placed first and second in the New York State Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) competition.
The first-place award was in the area of human service research. The team’s project, “Embryonic Stem Cell Research,” reflected on ethical issues as well as benefits that embryonic stem cell research brings to the medical field. Winners were Britnie Girigorie, a tenth grader at Niskayuna High School, and Ariel Thurman, seventh grade, and Ezria Brown, eighth grade, both from Mont Pleasant Middle School in Schenectady. Union mentors were seniors Angelo Cross and Kara Cotich.
The second-place award was in the area of technology. The team’s project, “How does solar energy affect a turbine?”, studied a turbine that uses light energy that converts to heat energy, which then converts to kinetic energy, causing the turbine to spin. From this process, the turbine produces mechanical energy. Winners were Domonica Farley, a ninth grader at Schenectady High School, and Marina Bianchi, seventh grade, and Brian Nowell, eighth grade, both from Central Park Middle School in Schenectady. Union students Cross and Cotich also mentored this team.
STEP is a statewide program to help prepare historically-underrepresented or economically-disadvantaged students for entry into college, with a focus on science, technology, and health-related fields. At Union, STEP is one of several volunteer and community
service programs that operate out of the Kenney Center. Union student-mentored teams competed against teams from numerous colleges in New York State, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, Fordham University, and the State University at Albany.
In April, forty students from ten Capital Region high schools became pollution investigators in the fictional town of Willow Creek, analyzing samples and doing some detective work to determine the type and source of pollution that has affected the town’s water supply. The exercise was part of Union’s second annual Irving Langmuir Chemistry Laboratory Competition, an event designed to expose students in Regents-level chemistry courses to the excitement of doing chemistry.
The students used their laboratory skills to solve the make-believe case, using real samples they tested to determine which business or industry in Willow Creek was the culprit. The students used the College’s laboratories and a variety of chemistry analytical techniques. They were assisted by Union chemistry students.
The competition was organized by the Chemistry Department with support from Albany Molecular Research Inc., GE Global Research Center, and Schenectady International, Inc. “The Langmuir competition is designed as a fun way to get the high school students to make creative use of some of the things they have been learning in their Regents chemistry courses,” said Joanne Kehlbeck, assistant professor of chemistry. “At the same time, this is a great way to introduce them to the fun of doing chemistry.”
Irving Langmuir, a GE research chemist who taught at Union, was the first industrial chemist to win the Nobel Prize. His discoveries included the gas-filled incandescent light bulb, atomic hydrogen welding, and cloud seeding.
Near the end of April, more than a dozen teams from local middle schools came to campus for the 2004 Rube Goldberg competition. Now in its fourth year, the “Olympics of complexity and redundancy” was sponsored by the College’s engineering program, Knolls Atomic Power Lab,
GE Elfun Society, and the
Schenectady Museum. GE employees served as judges.
James Hedrick, professor of engineering and director of the competition, says, “The Rube Goldberg contest, quite simply, makes engineering fun. Students have the opportunity to put their creativity to work and design wild contraptions to perform what is usually a very simple task. The only limits on machine design are their own imaginations. It’s a great way for students to showcase their design talents and inspire an interest in engineering at the same time.”
This year’s winner, a machine built by a team from Van Antwerp Middle School in nearby Niskayuna, was judged the best at removing a small pie from a box, placing it on a plate, and topping it with a dollop of whipped cream. The rules required each machine to take twenty or more steps, use a minimum of five different forms of energy, and demonstrate engineering and scientific know-how, creativity, and whimsy. In past years, the tasks have included sticking a stamp on a letter, sharpening a pencil, making a baloney sandwich, opening a bag of M&Ms, and putting toothpaste on a toothbrush.
The contest pays tribute to Rube Goldberg, an engineer and cartoonist whose works appeared in thousands of newspapers from 1914 to 1964. His inventions, he said, symbolized “man’s capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal results.” His name has become eponymous for anything that is unnecessarily complex, cumbersome, or convoluted.
Union history buff wins Bailey Cup
Jeremy Dibbell, a political science major from Bainbridge, N.Y., is this year’s winner of the Frank Bailey Prize, awarded to the senior who has rendered the greatest service to the College.
Dibbell, a fixture at most campus events, is perhaps best known as past editor-in-chief of Concordiensis, the student newspaper. “There will never be a perfect Concordy, that’s one thing I have learned,” he says. “But we can come close. It takes a lot of eyes and a lot of effort. One of the things I’ve really liked is that you can tell people are reading and that [the paper] is sparking debate. That’s what we all need to be going for.”
Dibbell served on a number of committees, including Planning and Priorities, which gave him “the ability to have a voice for students and to be involved in the nitty-gritty
of the College’s budgeting process.” He also held various positions with the Office of Residence Life and was on
the Writing Board, Minerva Committee, and Commencement Committee.
He also worked in the
College’s Special Collections, showing a special interest in Eliphalet Nott, president of the College from 1804 to 1866, and William Henry Seward (Class of 1820), Lincoln’s
secretary of state and the
driver behind the purchase
of Alaska. “Every aspect of American history is somehow encompassed at Union College,” he says. “The institution is so rich in history.”
Dibbell, who spent much of the past year researching Nott’s speeches and letters, will continue next year in the archives, planning the commemoration of the bicentennial of Nott’s inauguration this fall and assisting with other projects. His plans include graduate school in history and teaching at a liberal arts college, perhaps Union, he says.
Letters from Merjit
Marcy Hersh ’03, a political major, is spending the year teaching Engish as a second language on Mejit Island, an outer island of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in Micronesia. The Marshalls are home to twenty-five American volunteers, and Marcy is there with a non-governmental organization, WorldTeach, which is based at Harvard University. Here are excerpts from a couple of letters she has sent:
Before Christmas
I’m finally back in Majuro with its electricity, air conditioning, and Internet! I couldn’t wait to run down and send out an e-mail to all my favorite people on the other side of the world. I’m sorry that I haven’t been as good a correspondent as I should have been, but I am quite busy with school, learning Marshallese, making handicrafts with the women…I end up not having as much free time as I had thought I would.
It’s been such a crazy fall semester that I hardly know where to begin to explain everything, but I’ll try to do the best I can to give you a picture of what outer island living is like.
Mejit Island is a small, incredibly beautiful place where the people are incredibly kind. Welcoming, and
giving. I live with a great little family. Mama and Papa provide me with plenty of canned meat to eat and coconuts to drink! I spend a great deal of time with my little host sister, Lilliana, who is ten and my new best friend. We don’t have cold drinks, fresh fruit, or a flushing toilet, but these things have become less important over the last four months. I’ve come to truly love showering outside with a bucket, under the stars, and, in general, living naturally and simply really suits me.
School is going pretty well, but it took me a little while to get adjusted to being a teacher and not a student. I have about 110 students, grades 1-8, and with a few exceptions, they are eager learners, making lots of progress with their English. I’ve had to summon up all my reserves of creative energy to dream up interesting ways to teach ESL, and while there are rough days, it’s a beautiful thing when the kids finally understand and start speaking complete, grammatically-correct English sentences.
When a lesson fails, I fall back on singing, as music is really a great uniter of our most different cultures. I spent a whole week teaching my older kids Beatles songs, and it was such a hit that for weeks afterwards I was woken each morning by eager kids standing out my window belting out “You say goodbye, and I say hello!” At these times I have to smile and be grateful that they’re at least enthusiastic about the material.
Outside of school, I play volleyball in the afternoons with the women my age and help with cooking and handicraft making. The women of Mejit make these beautiful woven mats, made from the leaves of pandanus trees. While the matmaking itself is very complicated and I don’t have it figured out yet, I’ve gotten quite good at the decorative embroidery that they do, and we spend a great many afternoons sitting around, drinking (instant) coffee and making these gorgeous mats.
My Marshallese has gotten quite good and I’m capable
of communicating most anything I need to say (which is
a good thing, as no one out there really speaks much
English). Lately I’ve spent my evenings lying around with Lillana and telling “bwebwenato,” or stories-tall tales. She makes up little stories to share, and I’ve been translating children’s stories like the Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, etc.
With Christmas right around the corner, we’ve all been busy preparing for the holiday celebration. Mejit Islanders are extremely religious, and life entirely revolves around the church, which I dutifully attend every Sunday. Christmas is a HUGE celebration with food, singing, and dancing. Rehearsals have been going on since the end of October and stretch late into the night. Typically we start singing around eight p.m. and aren’t finished until two or three a.m.! I’ve gotten pretty good at the songs and their native dance, called Beat. I can even accompany myself on the ukelele a little! It’s a pity I won’t be there to see the actual event, but I’m leaving for Hawaii on Monday to spend Christmas with my family.
February
I’ve always had a travel bug. While an undergrad at Union, I went on two terms abroad-to Paris to study art history at the Louvre and then to Florence. The summer after my junior year, I spent two months volunteering in a middle school in rural Ghana in West Africa. That experience really opened my eyes to the shocking poverty, political corruption, and suffering of developing nations and their inhabitants. My work in the Ghanaian school taught me the powerful international currency of smiles! After my summer in Africa, I knew I had found my calling. When I found the WorldTeach program in the RMI, I jumped at the chance to experience a new culture, teach children, and share my positive, can-do spirit with a depressed community-oh, and live in paradise for a year!
The capital city of the RMI, Majuro, is a fairly modern city. Outside of Majuro are twenty-nine completely undeveloped island/atolls. Mejit Island, where I’ve been placed, is approximately one square mile and has 450 inhabitants. We have an elementary school, three churches, hundreds of coconut trees, but no phones, flush toilets, or refrigerators. I am the only American and the only English speaker.
Education isn’t supported in the community in the same way it is in the U.S. Parents fail to motivate their children to complete homework assignments, study for tests, or even attend school at all. This has been one of my greatest hurdles. I’m trying to change the spirit of the school and show the kids that learning can be fun and rewarding. The children are seriously behind, as a result of many years of non-English-speaking teachers trying to teach them English. The eighth graders are at the second-grade level in reading, writing and oral skills. I’ve tried to engender a love of learning and inquisitiveness in my students. Through donations from home, I’ve started a small library to encourage reading for pleasure.
Some of the highlights of the year include the performance of a play that I wrote for the seventh grade, a Christmas concert of Marshallese and American Christmas carols, teaching the kids various American pop songs and classic Beatles songs, and a spelling bee. I hope that by the end of the year, my students will understand that they don’t need to grow up to be poverty-stricken fishermen or handicraft makers, but instead have the intelligence and opportunity to go to high school and college and become doctors, senators, and bringers of vitality to this island community.
I love life in Mejit. I work hard all week teaching and tutoring, then on the weekends I explore the island on foot and with my snorkel and flippers. It’s just so gorgeous and pristine here. I frequently see sharks, turtles, and millions of varieties of fish. It’s easy to forget that I’ve given up electricity, running water, and modern conveniences as I’ve gained so much in their stead. I love living simply and close to nature, in the company of the warmhearted and gentle Marshallese people.
In June, my one-year contract will be over and I will be heading back home to the U.S. There I’m planning on finding a more traditional kind of employment and pursuing an advanced degree in international development.
Marcy suggests that donations
of children’s books and school supplies may be sent to: Mejit Island, c/o WorldTeach, P.O.
Box 627, Majuro, MH 96960.
For information on WorldTeach, visit www.worldteach.org
