Feature Stories
Image
Gary Schoichet
Lower East Side Prep’s robot takes to the playing field at the Javits Center.
Picture a medieval battlefield with castles on each end and obstacles in between. Picture mechanical warriors crafted of metal — modern-day versions of knights in armor. It’s a fight to the finish for points, and it’s witnessed by cheering, jeering spectators in bleachers — like Romans at the Coliseum. But this battle, this game, is at Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.
It’s the ultimate pairing of cooperation and competition in computer robotics technology — the 2016 FIRST Robotics Competition — for high school students from around the world, including the Flying Dragons, a team of English language learners from Lower East Side Preparatory HS.
Image
Gary Schoichet
Coach Henry Ruan (center) supervises team members making adjustments to the robot.
Fresh from a victory in the FIRST Tech Challenge NYC/Long Island Regional, the Flying Dragons are coached by Henry Ruan, a Chinese language arts teacher and technology instructor at the transfer school, which competes with and has been victorious against private schools and elite public schools.
Ruan’s team gets invaluable help from volunteer mentors and financial support from Goldman Sachs. But its biggest asset is the students.
“Most things they figure out for themselves,’’ Ruan says. “They make their own decisions; they manage everything. I make suggestions and give opinions. If I have a good idea, they figure out how to implement it.’’
Image
Gary Schoichet
Celebrating after a high-scoring game.
The 20-some students who comprise his two teams are from China and South America. Most haven’t been here long.
They meet almost every day after school and on weekends. One recent school day, Ruan and some students gathered in a classroom surrounded by robots and spare parts. Some were plotting strategy, some were making buttons, and some were doing homework. They know, Ruan says, they have to keep up with all their classes to stay involved in the time-consuming robotics program.
“I am a supporter, a facilitator, a helper,’’ he says. “I don’t teach them; sometimes they teach me.’’
Several team members are girls. “They won’t admit it,’’ Ruan says, but “attendance is much better since the girls showed up.’’ The students are, after all, teenagers.
At elite schools, Ruan says, the best students compete to be on robotics teams. “We don’t have that luxury here,’’ he says. “Whoever wants to join is welcome.”
He explains how some schools have more money and more sophisticated equipment. The Flying Dragons, in contrast, use hand saws and hand drills.
“But when students can win in this type of school, it’s more meaningful,’’ Ruan says. “Luck is part of it but effort is the most important part. It’s … how much the students can work together that counts.’’
Image
Gary Schoichet
Two of the team members and the Flying Dragons’ award winning small robot.
Image
Gary Schoichet
Chapter Leader Paula Chen (center) says the robotics program gives English language learners who make up the team "a sense of community."
The team’s tasks are many and varied. Members must understand each game’s rules. Then they design a robot, build it, program it and test it. There is paperwork, too: forms to complete and journals to keep. Even those are judged. And then promotion — from recruiting members to enlisting supporters through posters and buttons, like the one designed by Qiyi Li, 17, that reads, “Keep calm and build robots.’’
Another key element is the driver. For the first seconds of the game, the robot moves autonomously. After that, it is driven remotely by a student. Lower East Side Prep’s driver is team captain Jianpei Zheng, 17. In this country for three years, he’s been a team member for two.
“Driving skills, how much you know about your machine,’’ is crucial, says Ruan.
Jianpei, like many teammates, says he joined for the camaraderie — to be with friends or to make friends. Those friends stick together in and out of school.
“It gives them a sense of belonging, a sense of community,’’ says Paula Chen, the chapter leader at Lower East Side Prep.
Meile Li, 16, compares robotics to the video games she likes. She says she “enjoys this feeling of working with teammates.’’
Only in the United States for six months, Meile says her parents think she spends too much time at robotics. She and Qiyi describe how they wake each other by phone, sometimes at midnight and sometimes at 3 in the morning, so they can finish homework or work on the robotics journal.
Someday, when Meile has conquered other castles, perhaps her parents will realize there was no better place she could have been.
Related Topics:
English Language Learners