Hey everyone, I'm Sheila Jenkinson and you're listening to the Growing Small Town Nebraska podcast where my co host Marcie Sextro and I ask community leaders and business owners about their efforts in revitalizing the Cornhusker State. If you love your small town and you're looking for ways to make it even better, or maybe you're interested in what this revitalization that may mean for you and your family, join us as we talk with small town Nebraskans making our state the definition of "The Good Life."
Hello, everyone, I'm Marcie Sextro. We're coming to you from the Intersect Co-working and Incubator podcast booth in downtown Norfolk. Intersect is a coworking community that gives workers the spaces and tools they need to succeed. Join a like minded community of founders, remote workers, startups and freelancers with 24/7 access to a dedicated office or private desk, extremely fast internet, and as much coffee as your heart desires. intersect is your place to collaborate with others and get things done. Find out more on their website, intersectcoworking.com or follow them on Facebook or Instagram.
Here we are 2023.
Yes, we are very excited about the new year and some of the fun things that we have planned.
Yeah, we have some plans of our own to get out there and really meet people and visit these small towns in Nebraska.
We're going to be hitting the road and we are going to be taking our podcast equipment and going to western Nebraska and some southern Nebraska towns as well, in 2023.
That's right and anywhere in Nebraska. That's a small town that you're looking to promote. We want to hear about it. We want to know about it. Hey, it might become one of our travel plans for this year. So we're looking forward to hearing more about what you have going on in your communities.
Yeah, so you're have a revitalization project that you're working on right now. Or you've already accomplished one, make sure to let us know you can contact us on our Facebook page Growing Small Town Nebraska podcast, or you can email us at growing small town n e @gmail.com
Yeah, and don't forget to send us like where the best diners are, where to eat, where to grab those snacks. We're gonna be looking for that too.
That's right. We love traveling. And so we're looking forward to coming to your town. Just email us and let us know where you think we should be going in 2023.
and we'll see you there.
We have a treat for you today. We are going to chat with the Norfolk Rebel Robotics team. Now you might be wondering why a robotics club would be important to revitalization in a small town. But after hearing the Rebel Robotics team speak recently at a 1 Million Cups event well we were inspired by their commitment to helping small towns thrive.
With us today is Emmett Hake is a sophomore at Norfolk Catholic and Charlie Henkel is a senior at his home school. Welcome guys to the podcast.
Yeah, thank you for having us on.
So tell us a little bit about the rebel robotics team, how it got started. And where you guys hold your meeting.
We originally started, I think seven or eight years ago, in elementary school. We got a kit of Lego robotic parts and we wanted to kind of start a robotics team because we thought it was really cool. So I started with my dad and a couple friends and Charlie was there from the very beginning. We did the Lego League, I think for five or six years. And then now we are in high school and which we've been doing for about three years.
And where do you guys meet at?
So we meet in our house because we're unable to meet anywhere else. None of the schools have a robotics club. It's all on us.
Right? So we're a private team. So we're not associated with any of the schools.
How many team members do you have?
We have eight people, I think.
Yeah, I think that sounds about it.
We got we've got a couple of people that sort of do part time stuff.
Sure. Okay. All guys, some girls?
Yep, we have two women on the team. Yeah.
So you're in high school division right now. And so it's called FIRST Tech Challenge. So how is that different from the Lego club that you guys started with?
So the Lego club, you can only use Lego parts, Lego motors, and everything was built out of Legos and you build little robots. The table I think was about eight feet by four feet. And they had a bunch of little Lego missions on there and you autonomously program your robot to go out and do those missions. So there's like no remote control or anything like that. And then in addition to that, they had an innovation project. So every year there was a different theme. So one year was cities, one year was like space, and they'd have you figured out a problem and then come up with solution. So our team was actually always very good at that. But that's something that they don't have in the high school division. The high school division, we build a robot's that are about two feet cubed. And then there isn't that innovation project aspect.
Charlie, can you tell us about your current project?
Right? Yeah. So every year you get this game field, right? And it's the same size every but the challenges change on it. And so basically what you have to do every year then is you have to take your robot and redesign it to complete as many of the challenges in a set amount of time as possible. And there's two different stages, there's a 30 second stage where you cannot control your robot manually, it has to be pre-programmed. And so you have to program it with sensors to interact with the game field to complete challenges. And then for the rest of it, you can control it around. So this year, we have a couple of things we have to do. The primary thing is we have these poles. And so we have to take these little cones, and we have to stack them on top of. And so what we're trying to work on right now is we have this arm design that sort of called a linear slide?
It's the one we have right now is called four bar link.
That's right, four bar link. So it's a far four bar link. And basically what it's doing is it's like a scissors. So it's here, it has two parts, two arms.
If you were here, you would see how he's giving us all these things visually which is helpful for me.
Right, so I'll try to explain it for people who can't see me which is pretty much everyone. Basically what it is, think of it as like a V. But it's a V, that can rotate. Right? It has a degree of motion. So it would start like this. Right? And so what we do then, is we open up, and so it expands in height, right?
Yeah.
And so what we can do then, is if we have the cone on one side of the robot, is we can open this up a little bit, we'll say to 90 degrees, and we have a claw on the end of the arm, and then that claw picks up our cone. So we're at 90 degrees, then we want to go to our pole, which they're like, what they're about the polls are about the shortest one is maybe
One feet and two feet
And then yeah, something like that. And so we'll go 90 degrees, right. And then when we want to go on the pole, we'll keep opening up that scissor. And so now, we're at 180 degrees. So we've expanded our heights. And so now we can put the cone on top of the highest poll. And so we keep doing that.
I will point out that during the 1 Million Cups that you guys presented at I was here, and they did do some demonstrations. So you should be able to find that on the intersect co working space.
Yeah, Facebook page, they have those live. Yeah. So you can go back and see the robot, which is what I got to do. I was really excited to see it. And it makes much more sense that way. And it's just awesome to see what you guys have built.
And I hear you're doing pretty well. You've done pretty well?
Yeah, we we've been doing pretty well. So our first year was all virtual. That year was a really fun year that we had to pick up these phone rings that were about the size of doughnuts, and we had to shoot them from across the line into a into a pretty small opening. That year, we actually learned a ton about you know using cameras on the robot and having a control self autonomously. We programmed the robot to sense where that opening was that we were supposed to shoot into. Align the robot with that opening so that the shooter would shoot directly into that, and then kind of calculate the trajectory that the disc was gonna have to fly and then set the speed of the shooter that was one of the coolest things we did in or out. So that year was that was it was really fun. We didn't do as good as we wanted to at state because it was virtual. So we were kind of going back and forth between different areas that we were filming our robot and the light, there was a difference in light when we filmed that estate. So we tried to change the program and ended up kind of ruining our program.
Oooh
So we didn't do as well as we wanted to state. But we did still did very well. Our second year was last year. We originally kind of wanted to design a robot, again, a similar way we had to our first year where we just buy a bunch of parts off the internet and then assemble them. But there were a bunch of supply chain shortages that we were going through. So we actually ended up having to custom make most of it. We bought a CNC machine, learned CAD and that was actually amazing. We're still doing that this year, we realized it's a much better way to build a robot. So this year we're using all of our learnings from last year and we think we got a pretty cool robot.
We are all about Nebraska small towns and small businesses, so we've partnered with several of them to fill our website shop page with items like our Tribe t shirt, Pom Pom beanie and Podcast mug made by Legendary Graphics in Creighton. The team at Legendary Graphics can take your logo or ideas and make a fabulous design for you to put on a shirt, mug, earrings, beanie and so much more. You can find them on Facebook Legendary Graphics LLC, where you'll be inspired by the wide array of items they have.
We're impressed with the quality of their products and their customer service like Legendary Graphics on Facebook and start ordering fun designs on a quality product, today. You can see our Podcast Tribe T-shirts, our Pom Pom beanie and a Podcast mug on our website growing small town n e.com. and click on the shop page. We have a range of items, including our 20 ounce thermal mug and our Podcast tote bag as well. And don't forget the stickers to show your Growing Small Town Nebraska Podcast pride. They make great gifts for others, or even for yourself.
One of your things that you do in your club is that you help in the communities. Can you tell me a little bit more how you helped mercy meals here in town?
one of the things that's really nice about FTC is that there's this big focus on community, community outreach, and teaching other people about STEM. I like to say STEAM because I'm sort of an artist person. So I really like that part of it.
Can you explain let's let's explain STEM and STEAM?
Yeah, okay.
So for them who doesn't know
STEM is science, technology, engineering and math. And then STEAM is the better version, which is science, technology, engineering, art and math.
And there you go.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like that part better. Yeah, so basically, what we're doing with Mercy meals, if you don't know, they're a nonprofit organization, that is basically it's focused around bringing in groups of people and bagging in non perishable food, and then sending it to areas in Africa,
Just all across the world.
And so what we're trying to do with them is they have a lot of things that they wanted to have improved, right. So they have things where like, it's harder for elderly people to reach some things because they have bins in the very bottom that you have to lean down to grab. Or they have issues where their weight system, the way that they measure things is kind of inconsistent. And so they'll have a lot of times where they have to take bags back and re level them out. And it's very time consuming. And so what we're trying to do is we want to basically make their process of bagging more efficient and more fun for the groups of people that come in so they can bag more. And what we're looking at right now is up to 20% increase in bags, that they'll be churning out.
That'll be amazing. So I've done that a few times when our kids were little we went in and did that a few times. And yeah, you know, and it's harder to do it with these with kids as well. And you want you want to grow your children up to do these things. And so that's great. Those improvements that you talked about. I'm like, Oh, yep, that'll be fantastic.
Yeah, when you talk about a 20% increase, that Mercy Meals is already making, I don't know exactly how many I'm gonna assume 500,000. But whatever the whatever the number is, it's a large improvement.
Yeah
the amount of meals and people fed
Absolutely.
And you're doing a fundraiser for one of the things that you're doing to help with that. Right.
So one of the things, one of the things that we're planning on improving is their sealing system. So there's a system for sealing bags, because it's, it's pretty slow. And you gotta like tip the bag over when you do it. So food always falls out. And it's kind of just a pain. So we did find a better alternative online. I think it cost 300 to $500. I think we'll probably just fundraise that out of our team's account.
Okay
So if somebody would like to give to that, how would they do that?
We're private team. So it's a little bit more difficult to give us funds. The easiest way to do it right now is to write a check to 4h, and just sign it to Rebel Robotics.
Put that in the memo line?
Yep. And they'll get it to us.
Oh, nice.
That's great. I hear that you're helping with the new Makerspace that's coming into town, you're kind of givingcom some information about that. I'm so excited for that to come. Tell me kind of what you guys are talking with them about and what you're most excited about having in town?
Yes. So the Makerspace it's a really cool deal. The thing about the Makerspace is they're trying to decide what sort of curriculum they're going to have in there. So they're gonna have all the machines, they're gonna have everything necessary to make really cool stuff, regardless of if we're going to help them with that or not. But the curriculum is really a big deal for us because they're trying to decide between a couple different robotics programs. Mainly, they're deciding between the one we compete in First Tech Challenge and then Vex, the biggest difference being FIRST Tech Challenge, you're, you're actually able to make your own custom parts. And, you know, put the whole robot together in a much more custom way. Whereas Vex is they've got their website online and you can only order their parts off, build a robot off of that. So we're trying to work with them to show them the difference between FIRST Tech Challenge and Vex, and we're trying to convince them to go the FIRST Tech Challenge way because we think that If you're gonna end up doing Vex in this Makerspace, what's going to happen is you have all these machines that are not going to be utilized as much by the robotics teams as opposed to how much they would be utilized by FIRST Tech Challenge teams.
Right. And another thing that we're trying to do is we really would like to work with Makerspace, to teach classes, right? Because that's another big thing is if you're going to do this curriculum, you need mentors. And so what we're also trying to do is we're trying to get, we have a lot of mentors that we work with, with our sponsors, with connections that we have, that's how we learned all the stuff we know. So we're trying to connect them with the MakerSpace. And we're also trying to do our own classes. I don't know, I know, we're trying to do maybe some media classes, that would include stuff like videos, things like that. And we also want to do some robotic stuff with like coding, we want to do CAD, wanted to teach people specifically about FIRST pretty much.
Yeah, so you, you look at the other teams that we're up against. And it's teams like Creighton Prep, and they're great guys, they've got a big robotics lab, they got a full time robotics coach, a teacher, he teaches the students all this stuff. And then, you know, all these, all these students then use their learnings from class to build the robots, and they've got about six teams. And then you've got people from our small town that want to want to get into this, but there aren't any teachers, there are no classes in the school that really fall along with this except for like drafting. So we really want to get a system kind of set up where people can come in, there are teachers, are the classes that you can take that you're taught, even if you're not interested in the robotics aspect, they're really important skills to have to be able to, you know, make and fabricate stuff. It's very useful. So.
So in January, you're going to be hosting an event here at Northeast Community College. Tell us about that.
So just a little background. In FIRST Tech Challenge, there's sort of a hierarchy of events. And so there's ranking events that you do towards the start of the season. And it's basically to sort of figured out what your rank is going to be at the starting competitions. And so what that does, is it gives teams an opportunity to host their own meets. And so yeah, that's what we're going to be doing in January. And so we're going to be doing it at Northeast Community College. And it's basically going to be it's going to be open to anyone. So if you wanted to stop by and watch some awesome robots, have fun, that'd be great. And we encourage you to do that. But it's good. We're gonna have teams from Creighton prep. So far that we have coming, we're going to have teams from Marion?Marion
Yeah Marion. And it's going to be super fun. And hopefully, what we're going to do is we want to get a lot of people from the community to come down and see it, because I think it'd be a great way to sort of see the impact that what I want to say the impact that sort of things like FIRST have on students, right, you because when you go to something like this meet, what you'll see is you'll see a lot of bright young kids who are able to actually put their talent to use. Yeah, and I think that's a very, very powerful thing to see. Because you see all these kids that are having fun, doing what they like, and they're also learning really important skills.
Well and then it inspires as families come and watch this, those that next generation coming up. They're they're like, wow, okay, you know what, I think I want to try that. And so
And that event is January 14, when does it start?
Most likely, the matches are going to start around noon.
Okay, we'll have more things on our social media about it. But you guys have a YouTube channel, and Instagram. Correct.
Yes
So, so let's list the specifics on that so that people can look at some of your videos on YouTube and see a little bit more about what you're doing.
Okay, so Instagram, we're just rubber robotics. That's the best place to get like on the go updates.
I'm already following them.
Oh, good for you. I will do that to today.
They put little clips on there.
Yeah
Yeah, I know, we have Emily's her name. She's sort of dedicated to the Instagram, She works really hard to keep that updated. And that our YouTube channel, that's sort of what I'm in charge of. We have a lot of videos about our competitions. So if you want to see what a competition is like, I recommend our latest video we released which was from last year's state competition. It's the FTC state VLOG. It's the first video that we've up. It's the most recent video that we've uploaded. And then we also have a video on there that sort of explains what FIRST is and what we do. So if our explanation was not the greatest, it probably wasn't then that that video would be a great way for you to sort of understand it a little bit better. And then yes, we have a lot of videos on there that sort of talk about what we do, we have a really nice breakdown video of our robot from last year that we did. That's really cool to sort of see all the design elements, we do sort of our design process, how we go from concept to an actual finished product.
I actually really liked the way you guys explain things. And it's really, if you're sitting here, Charlie uses his hands. Like, I think if we put your hands behind your back, you wouldn't talk. That's what an instructor said about me one time. And then Emmet is gracious to explain terms, like, autonomously.
Yeah
And he's, he's like, you know, you don't need to remote or like, oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, so you're doing very well explaining things.
Absolutely!
And I can tell that's maybe part of your training, is how to explain terms, so that not just people who are doing these robotics, but your average person can understand when you're when you're teaching and training.
Yeah, and, you know, I'm actually glad you brought that up, because that's another thing that we wanted to talk about. One of the things that's really cool about FIRST, and that sort of sets it apart, in my opinion from other robotics programs is sort of the emphasis on talking. There's not a lot of other robotics programs, to my knowledge, that have you present to judges. And that is a big part of FIRST. And so I think that's really important, because I think it's a really important life skill, when you do job interviews, if you want to talk to people, that's a big deal. And FIRST really pushes you to present and that's a big part of how you score well, is you have to write your presentation, have to present it to people, and you have to make it entertaining and informational. And so that's something that I think is going to be really important is when we go out, and we try and meet with the schools, then we try and present to classes. And you see a lot of kids who are really shy, and they won't look at you, they won't like talk, they sort of stare at the floor. Well, that was me, that was Emmett, that was pretty much our teamlike when we started. And it's sort of something if you don't start talking, then it doesn't go away and it doesn't get better. And FIRST is really, really good at getting kids to start talking. And so that's another thing I would say about the January 14, event is show up and you know, put your goggles on for safety, but go in the pit tables, and talk to some of those teams. And you'd be surprised how many of them can have a real conversation with you, and can tell you about the robot.
That's exciting. I really appreciate that. On that level, so I do have a question for each of you. And it's not like you have to have all of your plans laid down right now. But out of curiosity, Emmett do you you know, moving forward in life, what what you're maybe looking to do, and does it have anything to do with this?
Yeah, so I've kind of got some ideas. So right now I'm considering going to school at UNL, for biomedical engineering, and then go into UNMC, for general surgery, or just a basic mechanical engineer.
Okay, and how about you, Charlie?
I'm going to Northeast next year in the media arts program.
Oh, okay. Well, keep in touch. That would be me. And that's fun to hear and see how these things have maybe changed your perspectives, as well.
We really appreciate you guys coming in today. And we are really, really looking forward to your event coming up. We will try to be there. And and we just hope you have a really great turnout. Thanks for coming in and sharing everything with us today.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you guys for hosting us. That was really easy to have a conversation with.
Oh good.
Well, good.
Good to know. Good to know. We are new at this too. Hey, we do have one final question for each of you. So let's see. Emmet, why do you love living in a small town?
I personally, I don't even know. It's just, I used to live in Omaha. I can't really say I lived there for very long. I just really liked the feeling of small town. I like knowing most people here. It's just really important to me that Norfolk continues growing and attracting people.
So I have two reasons. Reason number one is traffic. I don't like big city traffic. I don't I barely survive here.
I'm a big city driver in a smaller town community you want to watch out for me.
Okay, and then the other reason is kind of what Emmett said which is opportunity. There's a lot more opportunity in a smaller town. And there's but that doesn't mean that there's not people going to take advantage of it. And there's a lot of people here are gonna do a lot of great things and I'm excited to see that happen.
What great answers All right, thank you so much for being here. You have a great day.
Yeah, you guys too.
All right, they've got a great event coming up. The FIRST Tech Challenge robotics meet is this Saturday at Northeast Community College's Lifelong Learning building. This meets open to the public and matches start at 11am. There's going to be 11 high school teams from Nebraska competing where the teams will run their robots on a 16 by 16 course to score as many points as possible.
So go check it out. We will have their YouTube channel and Instagram links in our show notes, and they will also be on our Facebook and Instagram page.
We want to thank our incredible sponsors Intersect Co-working and Incubator, Suds and Stuff, Cowboy construction, Legendary Graphics, Sharply Stated by Sheila, ASQ promotional products, Elkhorn Valley Museum, the Norfolk Community Theater, and Circle S Creations.
Check out these exceptional small businesses on our website growing small town n e.com. If you're interested in being a sponsor for the podcast, you can find out more information on our website, or email us at growing small town n e @gmail.com. Don't forget to sign up for our email list and be the first to know the news about the podcast.
The Growing Small Town Nebraska podcast can be found on Apple, Spotify or Google podcasts. And we have new episodes the second and fourth Tuesday of every month.
Join us again next time as we talk with business and community leaders who are working to revitalize the Cornhusker State. Thanks for listening.
