Empowering Young Minds: Exploring the World of Robotics and Coding for Kids with Wendy Hill

Gene: 0:05

Hello everyone and welcome to the Volunteer Technologist podcast. Here we take a look at the different ways that people who are technically inclined volunteer outside of their primary job. Today I'm joined by Wendy Hill. How are you doing today, Wendy?

Wendy: 0:19

I'm doing pretty good. How are you?

Gene: 0:21

Doing great. Thank you very much for joining. So I became aware of some volunteering you're doing by listening to a podcast that you were one of the hosts on, and it turns out you seem like you do some pretty interesting things with robotics and kids and there's some link to Lego in there somewhere, and I thought that might sound like something fun to hear a little more about.

Wendy: 0:45

It is an amazing program. So I actually got involved with FIRST. This has been my second season And FIRST covers more than just the team that I have. So they have several different age groups. They start with little little kids and Lego, So like preschool age, and they go up just above preschool. I can't remember all of the names, but the middle ground, I believe, is called an Explorer team, And then the one I've been a part of is the FLL FIRST FLL or FIRST Lego League Challenge teams. These kids in the US run from ages 10 to 14. And in other countries they can go up to 16. So I did get to meet some older kids to get to participate in FIRST And we'll probably talk about that later. And then my co-mentor also mentors an FTC team. So that's the first tech challenge And that goes from 15 all the way through high school. And then there's FRC, which I've got to see their robots which are massive. These are huge robots, And that's FRC. So FIRST Robotics Challenge, So lots of robotics stuff going on. And, yeah, I've been two seasons into this and I think I've been sucked in for life.

Gene: 2:04

That sounds awesome. I didn't realize I started all the way down at preschool age. I've got a preschool-aged kid myself who I think would probably be pretty interested in it, and I just didn't realize it was even something that his age group would have as an option.

Wendy: 2:18

And I think a lot of people don't. I wish that FIRST advertised the options that they have available. So a lot of kids come in contact with the FIRST Robotics programs because it's in their schools. So if it's something that a child goes to daycare and has access to, you know, not all of them get a chance to. But the wonderful thing about FIRST is it's all volunteer-based And so even if you don't have a robotics team for the little guys and it's mainly just learning the basics to get to build and start learning how to follow instructions and working together. it really focuses on teamwork And if they're in those younger groups then by the time they get to a challenge team they're already comfortable working as a team and everybody has to do their part as part of it.

Gene: 3:09

That's really cool. I can totally see where the. I've never put together a robot like that, but I can totally see where that would just kind of mandate having some serious ability to do the team-style work where the collaboration would be kind of fundamental for that.

Wendy: 3:26

Yeah, And that's one of the things that FIRST stresses is that we have our core values that FIRST puts out for us, And one of those is teamwork and everybody participating. So in the older teams, kids can specialize. So the FTC team you can have someone that says, hey, you know, I love coding and that's what I do as a member of this team, or I love building. But in FIRST LEGO League they really want every kid to get to dabble in every single part of that, whether it's the building portion of it, the coding portion and so forth. And while you can tell that it's not some kid's favorite part, it is nice that all of them get to experience some part of that so that they can figure out hey, this is what I like And it makes sure that every single team member has input. We're getting ready for actually next season And so I know people on audio won't be able to hear this, but I actually have robots at home because I love these robots so much. So this is the one that I have built recently and have thrown some Python code to wrote some line follow code for a color sensor that's down here so it can follow lines And it's just fun. It's a lot of fun and it's great to see kids grow. And in a program like this that centers around volunteers, we get to have not only competitions together but you get to see this as it's spread throughout the entire world. I think most countries have FIRST teams in there. I know most of Europe does have FLL teams. Most of Asia does, definitely parts of Africa. Australia has quite a few teams. Got to meet a team from Mexico, yeah they're everywhere, they're absolutely everywhere. And there's multiple different ways in which we get to code our robots. So Lego, who provides the sets for the FLL teams? well, they don't provide them. They have to be bought through fundraising or whatever. But they actually make the kits for them. They put out two different types of code, so kids can code with Scratch or they can code with Lego's version of MicroPython, which can be fairly limited. The first year we were a team. We use Scratch. Our meetings weren't quite as consistent or as long as we would have liked And the kids did all right. This last year we switched to Lego Python And while Scratch was nice in getting some of the kids initiated in, this is how we code. This is the line of thinking we follow. Having them write out their pseudo code first. It's just so much harder in other ways And I don't know if you've ever played with block coding before, but it's really really hard to make comments. And then when you have every kid that's supposed to be coding and they need to show that they've done their work, it's so much harder in Scratch, whereas in Python you're like a little comment to the side hey so, and so wrote this one. Hey so, and so made this change. Hey, it went through 10 iterations as they upped numbers or changed numbers, so that was really helpful. And we found another amazing open source project over the course of this, called Pybricks, and you've probably heard me talk about this a million times on the other shows. Volunteers who run Pybricks, who work on the code, are so fantastic and so open to feedback that we actually took super beta firmware with us to our very last competition for the year, which I told the kids when they voted on it. You know, there may be some bugs in this. This isn't even a public beta yet. This is one that we've gotten access to through. The form is we're playing with some different stuff and It was really cool for them to be like yeah, you know, we want to try it. Anyway. This is a little bit of a A gamble, i guess you can say as it is, but it gave them so much more flexibility and it's really cool to watch them go through that process and as we were comparing the two different types of python that they could use, this is the advantages of this one. This is the advantages of this one, where you going and them being fully aware that if they switch to the Pybricks, python. They were rewriting their entire code from the ground up, all their functions, everything They were rewriting and it was really cool to see them say we're up to the challenge, let's do the work, let's make this happen.

Gene: 8:09

Also kind of speaks to what, what a difference that must be, because there's got to be some things that are, even as a kid, a tangible difference for them to be willing to say, yep, i'm going to have to redo everything I've already done and I'm actually okay with this.

Wendy: 8:26

Yeah, yeah, and it is awesome to see that. And we, as mentors, demand from them that if you're going to be part of the team, you're willing to put in the work, because we are a team that wants them to not just check all the boxes. Yes, we built a robot. Yes, we've programmed it. Yes, we went to Regionals or state competition. We really want a team that's focused on working together, coming up with solid solutions and willing to put in the time and effort, because, yeah, you can have team members that are there that are quote unquote, being part of everything, but really they're not interested in putting the time and work into it. And we want the kids to succeed and we want to see them grow, and so they even get homework from us as part of our time. This last year, hour wise we also homeschool, and so we were meeting during our co-op times about an hour, but most of the time we were meeting an additional eight hours a week outside of co-op for them to get all of that done, to work on an innovation project, and that's a little bit different than just their robot building and coding, but it is a massive time dedication, not only for them but as mentors, in order to give them the time that they need to get everything done to succeed. Definitely a lot of time that's put into it. So this year we're actually meeting over the summer, so that'll help not make it so time intense right before the competition.

Gene: 10:04

Yeah, that's. that definitely sounds like a serious time commitment. Can I get you to just make sure I'm not misunderstanding which age group of kids are you currently working with?

Wendy: 10:15

I'm currently working with the age group from 10 to 14. And then my oldest. This coming season is his last year and he'll be aging out and probably going to the older team after that. So while I have a little bit to do with the 15 to 18 year old team, I'm pretty sure in the next year I'll be coming more involved with them. I'll be part of two robotics teams, much to my husband's dismay, because sometimes he's like how are you supposed to get all this done now?

Gene: 10:48

Yeah, i was just thinking that's the, that sounds like a recipe for twice the commitment and time and effort and energy and everything.

Wendy: 11:00

Yeah, it's more triple the commitment because they have more weekend tournaments out of state ones too, the FTC team Yeah.

Gene: 11:11

So how did you get involved with the FIRST and the LEGO league stuff in general?

Wendy: 11:16

It's actually kind of a funny story. Like I said, we are a homeschool family and part of a homeschool co-op and the one year I was going to be teaching a Python class as part of homeschool co-op and my co-mentor now saw me on the list and was like "hey, i'm starting a robotics team this year. I want her as a helper on my team. So I just kind of got thrown into that class, initially as a helper because I was teaching a Python class at the same time And, like I said, i absolutely loved it. My co-mentor is amazing. She has been in robotics. I think this was her 14th year.

Gene: 11:58

Oh, wow.

Wendy: 11:59

Volunteering and being a part of the robotics teams, and so it's a good thing I like her so much because we've spent, like is it, hours and hours together.

Gene: 12:08

And something tells me there's no end in sight of that either.

Wendy: 12:11

Yeah, my husband jokes about her being my robotics wife.

Gene: 12:15

I was actually just about to make a very similar joke.

Wendy: 12:19

Yeah, he's like there's sometimes that you talk to her more hours a day than you actually get a chance to talk to me. So, yeah, we do, we spend lots of time together And that's how I got involved with it. It was just kind of one of those perfect storms And she pulled me in and now I don't see me leaving.

Gene: 12:38

Were you a Python programmer or know Python before you got into this? Or was this a "hey, I think I'm gonna learn this to teach it to the kids, kind of thing.

Wendy: 12:46

Yes, that's exactly what it was. I want to learn Python and I know if I did a class for co-op then it would make me take time to do it.

Gene: 12:55

Funny how it's kind of a good motivator when you've got to teach somebody else how to do it, to learn something.

Wendy: 13:00

Exactly exactly.

Gene: 13:03

Oh, that's really cool. You mentioned some of the competitions you've done. You want to tell us a little more about what's drawn on with that and both what's involved in it and maybe what kind of competitions they are.

Wendy: 13:13

Yeah, absolutely. So. It kind of depends on the state, and Idaho is changing a little bit this year. If you didn't know, i'm from Idaho, so in the past we've had a regionals and that's a qualifier for a state, especially if you have a bunch of different teams. Then you all come together and you have one practice and three robot runs for the FLL challenge teams And you're not really competing with the other team across you from you. Your only score that really counts is your best score, so that kids have knowing, these robots and their gears are not perfect by any means, and so we're not talking industrial and commercial grade robots.

Gene: 13:56

Yeah, i mean, there's a reason why LEGO is in the name. They're put together with basically LEGOs and what looks a whole lot like rubber bands.

Wendy: 14:03

Yes, thankfully these are Technic LEGOs which are so much better than regular.

Gene: 14:08

LEGOs.

Wendy: 14:09

As far as staying together, they're really pretty solid. But yeah, they know that their motors aren't perfect, that there's some wiggle room in them And the version that we have right now, the Spike Prime, is better than previous generations in the slack inside the motors, but there definitely is some room for error in there. So they've got their practice run and the three matches, and they do have another team going on the opposite side Of them, and one of the cool things that LEGO does is there's always one of the missions and our robots are running completely autonomous. They have oh my goodness, my brain went blank Two minutes from start to finish in which the robot is running absolutely autonomous. The robot can come back home and you can start another program, but when the robot's out on the field, you're not allowed to touch it. You're not using a remote control. All of their programming is autonomous programming.

Gene: 15:01

Oh, that's really cool. I had just envisioned that these were RC type, as opposed to set it and let it go kind of setups. I had no idea that it was autonomous.

Wendy: 15:11

Yeah, their programming has to be accurate to the point of like we need to go so many centimeters. That's why the line follow code is so incredibly helpful, Oh wow. Because you can use those different sensors. There's also an ultrasonic sensor And I really hope that we get a chance to use it this year. It's just one of those sensors that has to be right out in front. It's so big and bulky that it's hard to find a really good place for it.

Gene: 15:36

Do the ultrasonic sensors that go with these kits look like the ones that I would get for like home automation, where it looks like a pair of eyes?

Wendy: 15:44

basically, yes, Yes, exactly That's what they look like.

Gene: 15:49

Hey, put a little nose under it and make some decoration out of it.

Wendy: 15:52

The kids have put eyes on the robot in the past. It is fun.

Gene: 15:55

Yeah.

Wendy: 15:57

So we'll see how it goes. I think it's definitely a useful sensor. Sometimes they have missions that if both teams complete it then there's bonus points for either team. So they do encourage you to help out the other team by finishing this one. There's always excitement of saying good luck, shaking hands, cheering on both teams as you're going through it. And then the other part of competition is their innovation project. So us as mentors, our job is to help guide the kids in finding other experts to talk to. So this last season was all about power how it's produced, how it's transported, how it gets consumed And us as mentors were able to set up different field trips and stuff for them, giving the kids lots of options to gather information, talk to people in the energy field before they come up with their innovation project, and their innovation project can be something completely new or it can be improving on something. And our kids took the hydroelectric dams that are out here. There's quite a few of them on the Snake River in Idaho, where for people to view the waterfalls because we've got Southern Idaho is all volcanic rock really. I live in a volcanic rock desert And in order to see these massive waterfalls that come off the river. They have federal regulation saying that they need to run so long during the summer and on holidays. The upside of that is people get to go see the beautiful waterfalls. The downside of that is, at the time that that's happening, that water's not producing power And our power company has to go buy power from somebody else. So the kids talked to the experts there and found out that there are certain days in the summer they're mandated to run those waterfalls but there's nobody coming to watch them And that's costing their community money. So their innovation project was to install a button that, when the button gets pushed, the falls get activated for the day and they run for the rest of their man dated time get shut off at night. The power company that we talked to not only loved the idea, they took this up the chain and it's being implemented by next spring when they have to put this mandate into effect.

Gene: 18:21

Oh, wow.

Wendy: 18:22

They also told our kids that it saves their local community $72,000 a day that this project or that the waterfalls doesn't run, Yeah, massive, massive amounts of money, that it saves their community in power generation. And last year they did something else. They had another innovation project which they also talked to experts. I'm really excited about this one because it gets implemented, but it shows the kids the process of hey, I don't know this information, but it's okay to go to somebody else and learn about it, to ask them questions and then take your idea to somebody who's experienced and say, hey, will this work? And it's so awesome for them to get feedback both last year and this year saying, yeah, this is what works, This is what needs to be tweaked, This is how we could make it better or these are the constraints we have to work in And this is where we can go with it. So they have to take this whole process all the way through. Not all teams will actually talk with the experts, which I think is sad for the kids. I really believe that it's part of our job to make sure that we are able to get them in contact with experts, no matter what the theme is, because they grow so much in that time period as they're talking to them having to come up with interview questions for kids is really pretty cool. And then going through the whole innovation process and then presenting that to judges. They have to do essentially three presentations. So they will do a presentation on their innovation project. They'll do a presentation on the robot, which includes their robot design, why they built it the way they did, why they have the attachments they do and how they coded their robot, needing to explain their code. And then the core values, one which talks about how they work together as a team and how they've helped out their community and all of that fun stuff.

Gene: 20:18

That's fascinating. On the interview parts, are the kids coming up with the questions? Are y'all kinda getting them seed questions and letting them build from there? How does that work?

Wendy: 20:29

We have the kids come up with the questions, so we'll work through them in that process as mentors, or we sit down together as a team, say This is who we're meeting with, this is what they're an expert of. What questions are you going to ask them?

Gene: 20:45

That's great, yeah, learning learning how to convey your ideas to somebody else and In learning how to go through that question and answer process is an is an incredibly valuable life skill. Oh yeah, It's a and I worked with adults who struggle with that. So to anything that can help kids get better at it, where it's not a stigma they have for the rest of their lives, is just Amazing.

Wendy: 21:13

Yeah, it helps with that. It helps with their public speaking. We actually had another expert from a company come speak to us before for the big competition that we went to this year, and That's one of the things that he relayed to both the FLL team and the FTC team was, even if you guys don't go on to engineering or programming careers, you are learning the problem-solving skills that are going to help you out so much later in life. And he talked about how he's worked with other mechanics that we're lacking some of those problem-solving skills that are even more important as More and more technology gets brought into the different vehicles and things that they're working on, where, yes, you have the mechanical parts, but there's also the technology boards, programming. That's now part of them too, and being able to run through those Breakdown. This is what I know. What can we do from here? skills, he says it's lacking, and in a lot of people that he's worked with in recent years.

Gene: 22:19

It's one reason I love seeing coding and stuff being taught to kids more now is it's exactly what you're saying, is developing the logic side of stuff and working through the problem-solving that's required with that. It's perfectly fine for people not to, you know, take to that and not to want to do it more. But if they pick up even a smidgen of those skills you know during that time, that's again incredibly useful life still.

Wendy: 22:47

Absolutely, Absolutely.

Gene: 22:49

I can totally understand what you're talking about with the mechanics side of things, the amount of code that's in a car these days, it's just mind-boggling.

Wendy: 22:57

I know I'm set time and time again that I love my technology, but I hate those boards in my car. I've got an older car right now It's an '06 and one of the boards and it's bad. That controls the climate control in the back of the vehicle And you can't find one. They don't make it anymore and to get a used one is nearly impossible because then it's a junkyard one that's also been in a car for the same amount of time and my husband's like we should get a newer vehicle and I'm like why? yeah, this one has grim ones, but I don't want another one that's that much harder to fix Because we can't get our hands on the parts or we don't have the right computer because it's proprietary software in order to get it. So eventually I'm gonna have to break down and get one. I can't drive this one forever, but yeah, I do have complaints about that as well.

Gene: 23:52

Well, on the positive side of it obviously because of the podcast that I first heard you talking on, I know you'll appreciate this, a lot of the stuff we love on the Linux desktop it exists because of stuff written for the automotive industry. That's cool. It's amazing that so much of what is written for automotive ends up being in desktops or tablets or other things that we think it was written for that and turns out it was written for that fancy display inside the car or something like that. It's just fascinating the crossover with this stuff. Yes, it is. That's a whole other topic.

Wendy: 24:33

Yes, yes, oh, i'm easy to get into other topics, for sure.

Gene: 24:37

Yeah, I wouldn't know anything about getting distracted.

Wendy: 24:40

Right, exactly, but as far as competition goes. So there's the regionals and some kids depending on, or some teams, depending on how many teams are in an area don't necessarily qualify for a state so then state is another competition where they do exactly the same things, But one of the awards given out is a little bit different and it's called the Champions Award. That is the overall winner for there. Idaho has a southern Idaho state and a northern Idaho state. It's definitely hard with the sites of our state to get everybody together, so we have two state competitions southern Idaho and northern Idaho. This last year, my team put in all the work and earned that Champions Award and they got to do a head-to-head with north Idaho. The winner of that head-to-head got to go to Texas to go to Worlds. The other team had the opportunity to go to California for a LEGO Robotics Invitational and our team was able to earn that spot for Worlds last year, which was absolutely amazing. It made me even more excited to be part of this program, being a volunteer and then having two kids into it myself to get to experience with them. Worlds was amazing because they had everything from the Explorer teams all the way up to the FTC teams. There was over 35,000 people there, so we got to compete in kind of the almost standard way as we do, except for we got three practice runs and then our three regular runs. But we got to meet teams from all over the world when we got to go to Texas in April, and then they got to see the FTC competitions in action. They got to see the FRC competitions in action. So, knowing "hey, once I age out of FLL, these are the opportunities available to me if I want to continue down the road of robotics. My favorite part of the whole experience was that last day they had an encore game which you got paired with another team, so they were your alliance partner and we didn't get the rules until 8am that morning. So you got there at 8am, you opened your envelope, you read the rules and then you had an hour to build whatever additional things you needed and code that robot and get ready to go. We got to work with a team from Australia called the Dona Eating Llamas. They were amazing. Absolutely loved them. They were right next to us in the pit section too, so we got to talk to them a lot during the rest of the competition. But they were a ton of fun to work with And it was so cool because in FTC you work with alliance partners And it almost felt like, hey, this is one step closer and getting the kids ready, if they did choose to go to FTC to see what it's like to work with another team and take two different groups of kids that haven't known each other all year. And now you've got to figure out how to take your strengths and your weaknesses and blend them together to have the best robot run possible. So that was a blast. It was my favorite thing. I got a ton of pictures of that And they've changed it again this year. So they're dropping regional stress. We're only going to have a state, and in past they've switched in which part of Idaho gets the ticket. So the last two years Southern Idaho has went to worlds And so this year they're going back to switching back and forth. So now North Idaho will get the tickets to world And I'm hoping that Southern Idaho because we are in Southern Idaho gets the ability to at least get to go to California. It's one more thing for the kids to work towards. I'm really sad that we're losing regionals in our area, because the competitions themselves aren't necessarily all about competing, but it's definitely a learning experience too.

Gene: 28:29

Yeah, it sounded like the competitions were really encouraging collaboration and good sportsmanship and that kind of stuff. Oh, definitely, yeah, you cannot win awards if you are a bad sportsman, yeah, you don't want awards if you're a bad sportsman. I wish it was that way everywhere.

Wendy: 28:45

I know. I know right, because even if you're upset about not winning and whatnot, it's learning how to be like you know. These are the things we did well And these are the things that we can improve on, and gosh dang it. Next year we'll try again with the things we need to improve on, and that's what regionals was to us. So if regionals was state this last year, we wouldn't have went to worlds. The kids were nowhere near ready. It was a fantastic growth learning experience. They were able to walk in, do their robot runs, do their presentations and be like gosh dang it. We really did not do well in these sections, and then we as mentors get to have that. Conversation with them is okay. I love the fact that you've pointed out the pros and the cons. Now, what are we going to do to fix them And are you willing to put in the time to do the work? And if you are, then we're here to help you.

Gene: 29:42

So how come there's not going to be regionals? I'm assuming there's some seemingly logical reason for this.

Wendy: 29:48

We've got the word down from the head of state saying that it's easier on the kids to save and it's to save money. I disagree with that opinion. I would really love to see regionals back next year, so hopefully we'll get it in. I'm hoping that there's enough of the coaches that have some input in saying, hey, bring them back. They are a really good learning experience and prepper for state competition.

Gene: 30:14

Gotcha. At least it sounds like it's being done with the best of intentions, even if it might be a little misguided.

Wendy: 30:20

Yeah, yeah, and there's time crunch. I know that the people that run FLL for Idaho there's a limited crew And the robotic season runs from August 1st all the way through what worlds was in April And where you've got all these different divisions. That's a whole lot of weekends that you're out and about and away from family and all of that.

Gene: 30:44

So I definitely get wanting to condense some of that down a little bit, or finding some extra help And just through the pool of judges and stuff isn't exactly the biggest of pools of people either.

Wendy: 30:55

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I know Northern Idaho struggled with that last year where they were worried if they were actually going to get to hold their state because they were struggling to get enough volunteers to come judge and to be referees and stuff. So that's, I guess, one call I can have for people that are listening to it. Even if you don't have the time to coach a team, volunteering some time to help with those tournaments is absolutely amazing and helps them run smoothly and allows them to have more competitions, more times to run their robot and improve on those skills.

Gene: 31:34

It sounds like a great way to participate with a fairly limited time commitment too.

Wendy: 31:39

Yeah, just a Saturday.

Gene: 31:41

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Well, thank you very much for sharing all this. I mean this has been fascinating to hear about and I've definitely got some learning to do myself after this, because now I know it applies to my kids age too and that I didn't know before. So that's pretty awesome.

Wendy: 31:58

Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm glad I could part a little new information for you too.

Gene: 32:04

Thanks, I wanted to give you just a couple of moments, if you'd like to have them, to add anything else you want people to know about or tell people how they might be able to get in touch with you if they have questions about anything in the episode or in general.

Wendy: 32:18

The best way to get a hold of me is to go to Mastodon and I'll drop a link there. I also have an email address that I have set up that I can share, so I will give both of those to you and you can drop them in the show notes for everybody who has some questions.

Gene: 32:33

Absolutely.

Wendy: 32:34

Anybody out there who's wanting to start their own FIRST team. I know more about the challenge teams, but I do have an ear with an FTC team. If you would like to start a team and have any questions on how that works, how you can find different students, I want to get in contact with us because we're more than happy to mentor teams, not just here in Idaho, but from a distance too.

Gene: 32:58

That's awesome. Thank you very much and have a wonderful day.

Wendy: 33:02

Thank you, you too.

Gene: 33:04

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