Former Secretary of State George Shultz speaks with Mount Madonna School juniors and seniors at Stanford University. From left, Shultz, and students Ashley England, Trevor Forry, Amita Kuttner, and Patricia Sousa.
Two local teams brought home prizes for their two robots at the April 26 Robofest World Championships at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan. Their winning robots will appear at RoboGames at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center June 14.
Live Oak High School student Addien Wray and Sobrato High School student Joshua Yip of San Martin's CGLF Neighborhood Robotics Club won first place with their senior division exhibition robot, "ACME."
Each student received a $2,000 renewable scholarship by the university president.
"ACME" stands for the Automatic Cocoa Making Engine and uses sensors and hardware plus hand-built components and operates entirely autonomously to measure cocoa powder, heat and add water and stir the mixture. PAWS, the Pet-food And Water Server, uses Lego, standard plumbing parts and handmade pieces to feed and water pets in a controlled, automatic process. All robot components and software were designed and built entirely by the students.
"We are just too lazy to make cocoa for ourselves," the senior teammates said jokingly. "So we built ACME to do the job for us."
Judges were impressed with the robot's reliability and complex functions as well as the team's ability to quickly explain its ideas, field questions and successfully demonstrate its process.
The winning duo suggested ACME could produce cocoa in assembly-line fashion for groups, assist people with disabilities, or teach sensor, programming and mechanical functions.
Both Wray's and Yip's younger brothers Ernest Yip and Tirion Wray also took home a prize, winning the Judges' Award for their junior division robot, "PAWS." Yip attends Britton Middle School, and Wray attends Darwin School of San Martin.
Students meet former Secretary of State Shultz As a prelude to their upcoming May 11-22 Washington D.C. tour, Mount Madonna School students met with former Secretary of State George Shultz at Stanford University on April 30.
"There is no better way to learn history than hearing it directly from those who make it," said Mount Madonna School teacher Ward Mailliard, creator of the Government in Action curriculum.
Mailliard took his 11th and 12th-grade students to speak with Shultz so they could "hear from the source what it was like to stand on the world stage and negotiate to reduce tensions and nuclear weapons with historic figures like Mikhail Gorbachev."
The Shultz meeting was arranged as part of the students' Values in American Thought class, and is a lead-in to their trip to Washington, D.C., May 11-22.
The students' D.C. tour will include interviews with leaders such as Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte; Congressman John Lewis; California Representative Sam Farr; Presidential candidate and Congressman Dennis Kucinich; veteran reporter for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Ray Suarez; and one of the world's foremost authorities on Islam, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed.
The students were riveted by Shultz's stories and inspired by his kindness, humility and sense of humor. He shared stories of the Cold War, offered personal advice about the values that have inspired and guided his remarkable career. That career continues with the recent publication of Shultz's book "Putting Our House in Order," on social security and health care reform.
Fellowships available in estuarine science The CALFED Science Program is accepting fellowship applications through June 6 at 5 p.m. California Sea Grant will administer and manage the fellowship program on behalf of the Science Program. Up to 12 fellowships are available in estuarine and riverine science for qualified predoctoral students and postdoctoral researchers. The fellowships will begin September 2008.
The stipend for postdoctoral researchers is $45,000 a year for up to two years, plus eligible expenses up to $30,000. Graduate fellows will receive $25,000 a year for up to two years, plus up to $19,500 for eligible expenses such as research supplies, equipment and travel necessary to carry out the proposed research and attend scientific meetings. The selected fellows and their research will focus on the San Francisco Bay-Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta system and one of these topics: trends and patterns of habitats, populations and system response to a changing environment; aquatic invasive, or exotic, species; water supply and water quality; developing indicators and performance measures
South County Realtors Association awards scholarships The South County Realtors Association has granted several $1,000 scholarships for 2008. Morgan Hill Unified School District recipients are Live Oak High School students Tim Dronek and Kimia Ghaderi and Sobrato High School student John Yoon. Gilroy Unified School District students include Octavio Duran, Johnny Kuang and Yesenia Gonzalez Mejia.
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