Innovation & Robotics Academy

Innovation and Robotics Academy Program Overview
The Florida Conference (FC) Innovation and Robotics Academy (IRA) Program is a project based/deep learning, school-within-a-school program that is designed to develop within the participant the STEM competencies (STEM Foundation, STEM resilience and STEM identity) needed to successfully pursue an academic STEM career at the post-secondary level.

Throughout the course of the school year the students will participate in an immersive learning experience that will cultivate deeper learning that will prepare them to participate in the FIRST® Adventist Robotics League Competition.

A cross between Shark Tank and the DARPA Challenge, the competition is composed of two distinct tracks, an entrepreneurship track and a robotics engineering track.

The entrepreneurship track research a real-world problem, design an innovative solution to that problem, and prototype the solution.  The robotics engineering track requires the students to design, build and program and autonomous robot that is capable of completing a series of tasks in 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Curriculum Outline

I.               Team Dynamics

1.     Leadership
2.     Technical Writing
3.     SCRUM Project Management
4.     Conflict Resolution

II.              Robot Engineering

`1. Introduction to Robotics
a.     What is a robot
b.     What is robotics?
c.      Student Activity Build Robot
d.     Parts of a Lego Robot

2. Programming the Robot
a.     Introduction to programming
b.     Software Development Process
c.      Introduction to LabVIEW

3. Robot movement
a.     Linear Movement
b.     Deadreckoning
c.      Odometry
d.     Student activity 

4.     Robot Dynamics
a.     Calculating the Velocity of the Robot
b.     Calculating the Force of a robot

5.     Robot Mechanics
a.     Gears

6.     Advanced Programming
a.     Control Statements
b.     Sensors

7.     Robot Design
a.     Engineering Design Process
b.     Chassis Design
c.      Manipulators
d.     Computer Aided Design Lego Digital Designer

III.            Product Development

1.     Internet Search
2.     Lean Start-up Method/Minimum Value Product Design
3.     Marketing
a.     Focus Groups
4.     Web Development
5.     App Development
6.     Mechatronics
a.     What is Mechatronics?
b.     Introduction to Arduino

7.     Public Speaking

8.     Business Plan

9.     Prototyping
a.     Rapid Prototyping
b.     Computer Aided Design
c.      3D Printing