GM FYI Blog

By Dan Hutchinson, Senior Manager
Controls, Conveyors, Robotics and Welding
and
By Hans Rodgers, Senior Manufacturing Project Engineer
Controls, Conveyors, Robotics and Welding

Staying on the cutting edge of manufacturing technology not only requires General Motors to employ highly skilled engineers, but to ensure that the engineering talent will be available in the future to meet even more sophisticated technical challenges. One way GM is doing this is to be a major sponsor of the FIRST Robotics Competition.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), is an exciting, multinational competition that teams company professionals with young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. In 2006, the competition will reach over 28,000 high school-aged young people on over 1125 different teams. Aside from being a major corporate sponsor, General Motors organizations across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico individually sponsor more than 30 teams.

Take Team 226 for example, the “Hammerheads” (a name chosen for beloved mascot Sharky) sponsored by the “Controls, Conveyors, Robotics, and Welding” (CCRW) Department of GM’s Manufacturing Engineering Organization. Nearly a dozen CCRW managers, engineers, and technicians are in their eighth year of volunteering their own time to mentor students from two local high schools in the area of the General Motors Technical Center, in Warren, Mich.

During a six-week design period, senior manager Dan Hutchinson and senior engineer Hans Rodgers work with the students on team management including budgets and schedules. Engineers Matt Reiland, Brian Musser, Jason Joye, Jeff Byrnes, Andrew May, Marc Kryzhan, and Dick Newland coach the students through mechanical and software designs, which become the basis for the Hammerhead robot. The team posts the design on their web site where engineers and the students invite technical queries, especially from newer teams lacking in FIRST experience. Additional CCRW engineers and managers Ray Roberts, Don Davis, Nick Tsai, and Terrance Southern work with other GM sponsored teams.

The entire team — students, teachers, and engineers — come together on “Game Day,” when six robots, controlled remotely by the students, show off their capability in a spirited competition. This year’s competition required programming of the robot to track a lit LED target with a vision camera in order to shoot Nerf basketballs through a 30-inch goal located 8 feet above the ground. In 2004, the Hammerheads took home the coveted title from the Great Lakes Regional Competition, outscoring over 60 of FIRST’s best teams.

If anyone thinks that there is a lack of enthusiasm for science and engineering among our young people, than they need to attend a FIRST event. Not only can these high school students get excited, with the coaching of the GM engineers, they come up with some pretty sophisticated engineering solutions for some difficult design challenges.