Two new programs are now being offered at Livonia Churchill High School’s Career Center, in Livonia, Michigan. In an effort to help junior and senior-level students learn more about the technology of the future, a new high school robotics team will start immediately, and a state-of-the-art training program is slated for the 2010-11 school year.
Once engrossed in architecture, 16-year-old Junior Haley Fox, a Livonia Career Center student, is now crazy for computer-guided robots that streamline the manufacturing process.
"They have the files, and they put them into the machine and the machine makes it," Fox exclaimed to the Detroit Free Press. “It's like ‘Wow! That was on the computer yesterday and now it's here,’” Fox excitedly stated.
In his first year at the Career Center, Fox’s teacher, Ron Wilson, has decided to jump head-first into the robotics future.
"If we get the kids excited and on track for robotics engineering, it would be a great transition to higher education," Wilson stated.
As Livonia’s engineering teacher, Wilson created an innovative middle school robotics program during 13 years of teaching technology at Emerson (
News -
Alert) Middle School in Livonia.
"It would also meet the needs or skill levels of people who want to become technicians, people who repair them, up to engineers,” Wilson commented.
On May 22, the new programs were introduced by the district with demonstrations by the award-winning high school robotics team, the ThunderChickens from the Utica Community Schools in Macomb County.
Winning the first Robotics championship in Atlanta on April 19, the ThunderChickens won with a robot built with the help from engineering specialists in the community.
The ThunderChickens' robot had to race around a track, knock down 40-inch inflatable balls, grab the balls and lift them over or under a 6-foot-tall overpass.
According to Wilson, Livonia students will help come up with a new team name once they start meeting in the next couple of weeks.
Mentored by seasoned robotics teams from Salem High School in the Plymouth-Canton district and Northville High School, they'll start participating in area events June 27 and 28.
"What's really great is everyone helps each other to succeed," Wilson said. "We're all in this together to create a great engineering future workforce."
That's also the idea behind a training program Wilson is creating with Fanuc Robotics America, to implement in the 2010-11 school year.
Fanuc, with U.S. headquarters in Rochester Hills, recently created a program to train educators on how to train students in robotics.
The CERT program, or Certified Education Robot Training, is not cheap though and will cost the district about $30,000, including a robot, Wilson said.
"Industrial robotics is a great career," Fanuc staff specialist Peter Varbedian said. "And when students in high school get exposed to it, they get excited about math and science.”
Starting salaries for robotics engineers average about $30,000, according to the Princeton Review, moving up to about $100,000 with 10 to 15 years of experience.
Wilson is expecting to spend about $200,000 for curriculum, robots and a simulation area for the Livonia Career Center.
In order to pay for the program, Wilson is going to start appealing to the 35,000 businesses with membership in the International Society of Automation. He also began a three-year fund-raising campaign at the May 22 open house.
"It's companies worldwide that have the automation and need the people to run them," Wilson said. "The whole idea is for the corporate companies to invest in them and continue on with their education. It's just a perfect mix."
Michelle Robart is a Contributing Editor at TMCnet. To read more of her articles please visit her columnist page.
