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2012~2013 Annual Report

Contents 1. Analysis of Robofest Student Registration Data …………………….………………………….…. 1 2. Robofest 2013 Survey Results ….……………………………………………….………………….. 8 3. Plans for Improvement ………………..………………………………………………………............ 12 4. Revenue/Expense Summary ………………………………………………………………………… 15 5. Assessment ………………………………………………………………………………………….… 16 6. Workshops, Summer Camps, and L2Bot R&D ……………………………………………………… 17 7. Recognition and Acknowledgement ……………………………………….…………………………. 18

(Figure 1) Robofest 2013 major sponsors and World Robofest 2013 participants

1. Analysis of Robofest Student Registration Data Main goals of Robofest are: to (1) get students interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) subjects and careers, (2) increase preparedness for successful college education by increasing knowledge of STEM topics that emphasize math, engineering, and computer science and computer technologies. In addition, Robofest provides opportunities to develop imagination, creativity, innovative ideas, teamwork, leadership, presentation and communication skills, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, among others. A total of 1,809 students, 516 teams from seven countries (Canada, Korea, China, Mexico, India, Brazil, and the USA) and 8 States (Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Minnesota, Florida, Hawaii, California, and Louisiana) participated in Robofest 2012~13. The season featured a warm-up competition, 23 qualifying competitions, a video qualifier,

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a video regional competitions, 2 regional championships, the World Championship, and multiple associate events – Vision Centric Robot Challenges, RoboParades, Bottle RoboSumo, and RET (Robotics Engineering Technology) Days. 643 site volunteers registered for Robofest events as judges, score keepers, setup/cleanup crew, etc. As independent events not directly controlled by Robofest office, Bottle RoboSumo was held in Hungary and RoboParade was held in Virginia. Table 1 shows the total number of officially registered coaches, teams, and students for the 2012~13 year. Note that Warmup, Michigan Championship and World Championship are not added to this table to avoid double counting of the same students who participated in qualifiers.

Site ID # Coaches # Teams # Students

Aurora_CAN 3 3 13

AutoShow_Parade 9 15 48

Bangalore_India 29 32 134

Battle_Creek_MI 1 4 9

BottleSumo_Champ 13 29 73

BottleSumo_LTU 17 32 78

Brecksville_OH 2 4 13

Canton_Achieve_MI 8 10 28

Canton_MI 14 18 57

CharlesWright_Det_MI 14 22 79

Cobo_Detroit_MI 13 12 46

CompLearningCtr_FL 17 32 133

Culver_MN 1 4 14

Emerson_Detroit_MI 2 7 24

Flint_MI 8 11 42

Fremont_CA 2 3 9

Galveston_TX 3 7 19

HanyangUnv_KOR (*) 5 8 26

Kapolei_HI 21 49 236

Medina_County_OH 4 15 46

MexicoCity_MX 7 19 85

Redford_MTA_MI 13 29 98

RoboParade_Camp 1 10 16

RoboParade_MacombCC 20 51 145

RoboSumo_Camp 1 7 13

SugarLand_TX 5 11 42

Troy_Bethany_MI 8 8 32

Troy_MI 9 12 52

UD_Detroit_MI 12 22 99

VCRC_Championship 4 8 16

VideoSubmission 9 14 52

Warren_MI 8 8 32

Total 283 coaches 516 Teams 1809 Students (*) Counted only teams that advanced to World Championship

(Table 1) Number of Registered Participants for Robofest 2012-13 Official Site Locations

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48% of student participants for spring competitions were from outside of Michigan. The average team size was 3.5 students. Figure 2 shows the number of student participants since 2000. The accumulated number of registered students in our web database since 2000 has reached 14,015. The total number of site locations, including associate events was 32 in the 2012-13 year. On average, 59 students and 16 teams participated per site. Robofest office supplied competition and event materials for each official site. Figure 3 shows the history of number of sites since the inception of Robofest. Robofest offers a variety of categories in which to compete. 49% of teams participated in the SRCC (Search, Rescue, Cleanup, and Collect data) Game. The second most popular category was Exhibition with 29% teams. Figure 4 below shows percentages of teams by age division & competition category.

(Figure 2) Number of Robofest Student Participants Since 2000

(Figure 3) Number of official site locations

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(Figure 4) Percentages of Teams by Age Division & Competition Category

Robofest can be generalized into two categories: Games that use fixed rules and open-ended Exhibition that includes Parade. Figure 5 shows the trend of number of teams between Games and Exhibition since 2005. We can see the trend that participation in the open-ended exhibition categories increases.

(Figure 5) Percentages of Game and Exhibition teams (Parade data is included in 2011 ~ 2013)

Figure 6 shows student participation. 48% of the students were from middle school, 6th through 8th grade. Figure 7 shows the trend of each age group since 2005. Note that the data does not include students from the Asia Pacific regional competition hosted at Hanyang University who did not provide the age data to us. In 2013, the percentage of middle school group increased, while high school group decreased. More 5th grade students joined Robofest. The number of college students was decreased since Sichuan University decided to hold the VCRC event in the fall.

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(Figure 6) Student Participant School Grade

(Figure 7) Percent of age group since 2005

Regarding gender, in 2013, 74% were male and 26% were female students. Figure 8 shows the gender ratios of Robofest students. Average since 2005 is 75% male and 25% female. The data does not include the students participating at the Asia Pacific competition as they were using their own registration system and we were not able to obtain the data.

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(Figure 8) Gender Ratios of Robofest Students

For the first time in Robofest history, minority population exceeded half (53%) of Robofest 2013 participants. 12% of Robofest 2013 students were African American, increased from 9% in 2012. Figure 10 shows the changes from 2005. We need to work harder to encourage students from under-served communities to participate in STEM education through robotics. Figures 9 and 10 data exclude students from the Asia Pacific Championship in Korea.

(Figure 9) Robofest 2013 Student Participant Ethnicity Data (Others includes Hispanic and Asian)

(Figure 10) Robofest Ethnicity Data since 2005 (The surge of African American in 2008 was due to a targeted grant)

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Robofest allows the use of any robotics platform, which is one of the unique features of Robofest. Figure 11 shows the data on robotics kits used by the teams. The majority of the teams (88%) was using LEGO NXTs. Arduino based robots were included in “Other” category. We do not have detailed data from the teams in the Asia Pacific region in Korea.

(Figure 11) Robotics Kits Used by teams

Robofest remains focused on student participants learning STEM through computer programming. The programming languages used in Robofest 2013 are graphed in Figure 12. Student teams continue to use advanced and varied forms of programming languages. Allowing students to use whatever programming language they prefer is one of many unique features of Robofest. “Other C” in the figure includes C, Easy C, NQC, NXC, C++, Arduino C, etc. RobotC became popular since Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy provided free licenses for Robofest teams beginning in 2009. All C-style languages together totaled 25%. Robofest provides opportunities to learn professional programming languages such as C and Java, and helps to prepare our students for future professional career paths. Robofest students continue to show advanced technical skills and improvements in their abilities. This is possible because of the many dedicated coaches and technical mentors. Data from Asia Pacific region in Korea were not included in the graph.

(Figure 12) Programming languages used

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2. Robofest 2013 Survey Results This section shows the results of the following anonymous web surveys.

Coach survey after qualifiers (80 out of 283 coaches participated, 28% of all the coaches)

Site Host volunteers after World Championship (85 out of 643, participation rate: 13%) The following Table 2 shows the satisfaction rate from each survey and Figure 13 visualizes the table in 3D bar graph.

Coaches Site Volunteers Average

Very Satisfied 37% 56% 46.5%

Satisfied 54% 40% 47%

Neutral 4% 4% 4%

Dissatisfied 5% 0% 2.5%

Very Dissatisfied 0% 0% 0%

(Table 2) Satisfaction rate from each of 2 surveys

(Figure 13) Satisfaction rate from each of 4 surveys

Figure 14 shows average satisfaction rate from all the surveys. Considering the satisfaction rate (93% were satisfied or very satisfied), Robofest 2013 was a sucessful year, but as seen in Figure 15, the satisfaction rate is below the peak satisfaction in 2007. Figure 15 does not show neutral or other cases.

(Figure 14) Averaged Satisfaction rates

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(Figure 15) Overall coach/site_volunteer satisfaction rate changes since 2006 (2006~2009 data contains only coach data)

The following figure 16 with 8 questions show the results of coach surveys from qualifiers.

_________________________________________________________________________________

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_________________________________________________________________________________ (Figure 16) Coach survey results

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The following Figure 17 shows the results of site volunteer (judges, proctors, etc) surveys with 5 questions after Robofest World Championship. _________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________

(Figure 17) Site volunteer survey results

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The surveys both for coaches and site volunteers had three essay questions.

Q1. The one aspect of Robofest that I like the best is:

Q2. If there were one aspect of Robofest that I would change, it would be:

Q3. Please write any suggestions/comments to improve the quality of Robofest for STEM education. We really appreciate all the comments that can be found on the web together with our brief answers at: http://www.robofest.net/2013/CoachComments.pdf and http://www.robofest.net/2013/SiteVolunteerComments.pdf

3. Plans for Improvement We have identified various facets of Robofest needing refinement, enhancement and improvement in the coming years based on outcomes, anonymous on-line surveys, private conversations, self-evaluation, and inputs from coaches, parents, volunteers, and site hosts. We know that some items summarized below are existing problems from previous years. Please understand that some issues take time and resources to improve.

3.1 General Administration 3-level Competition Structure for Game and Exhibition 3-level competition structure has been introduced since 2010 season. In order to compete at the World Championship, a team had to pass both a local qualifier and a regional competition as depicted in the following Figure 18.

(Figure 18) Robofest Competition Structure for Game and Exhibition Categoris

Even though there was still some confusion about the video regional screening after qualifiers, it seemed the 3 level structure was working better this year. Non-Michigan Game teams were screened by using scores at qualifying competitions. For 2013-14 year, the World Championship will be held in Daegu, South Korea in late May or early June. Therefore, there will be some changes in this competition structure. Our plan is to hold North American Championship at LTU on May 17. Any team that participated in local qualifier is eligible to compete at the World Championship. Teams that received winner trophies from qualifiers will get partial travel support to the World Championship. Details will be announced in November. Site Host Administration During the 2013 season when there were fewer than five (5) teams registered for a specific category/age division of competition, the division or site was cancelled. The decision was made three weeks before the actual qualifying date. We suggested displaced teams move to another site or use video submissions. Efforts will be made to proactively schedule dates next year so that there are not as many events on one day. It is strongly suggested that sites outside of Michigan plan for earlier dates, as time is needed to fund the expenses in traveling to the Championships. In the future, the development of committees for each state to

World Championship

Regional Championships (or Screening by Game scores or Video)

Local Qualifiers

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coordinate events is being considered, especially for the regional championships. The hope is to alleviate scheduling conflicts outside of Michigan and to provide geographic distribution as well. Registration Fees and Check-In Fees According to the anonymous coach survey, few people said the registration fee ($50) or check-in fee (up to $20) was expensive. We are proud of our cost-effectiveness and efficient management to minimize the cost for teams to participate in inexpensive Robofest robotics programs for everyone. We did not charge check-in fees for Michigan Regional or the World Championship in 2013. Communications

There is a way for coaches to get information including email addresses of other team coaches in their qualifying site on Robofest coach login account. However, we found few coaches were using this function. If you are a coach, please log on your account to find email addresses of peer coaches.

We encourage teams to use Facebook for communicating and networking with other teams. Robofest Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/robofest

We will actively use more Webinars. Recorded Webinars will be available later on the web.

Although there were Robofest articles in several publications, Robofest was not well publicized in major media outlets. This is a shame, as students were doing advanced competitions and their achievements should be well publicized. We hope to improve media coverage next year. Please send your teams’ achievements to your local newspapers and TV stations! We will send articles to newpapers and magazines too. For the first time, Detroit Public TV came to make a 30 minute program that will be aired on September 2, 7:30pm. A repeat will be aired on a later date.

Robofest Website It is true that it is not easy for (new) teams to find all the needed information on the web. We are fully aware that the current website is not well structured to navigate. Web pages are not consistent with design styles and color themes. There are some broken links. We are still working on renovating the website with a content management system. The new system will hopefully be introduced, if we find qualified staff and funding. However, we are proud of keeping almost all data/information/pictures from the 15 years of our history. Online Registration Systems

Still less than a half of teams uploaded team pictures this year (2006 - 68%, 2007 - 53%, 2008 - 55%, 2009 – 50%, 2010 - 50%, 2011 - 41%, 2012 - 34%, 2013 – 44%). We plan to develop an automatic reminder function or require a team photo to compete.

There are inefficiencies caused by the team registration system, mailing list system, and volunteer system not being integrated. For example, some coaches received too many of the same emails generated from the systems if the coach registered for multiple years. We have started the integration of the five independent database web application systems, but the job is not completed yet.

Currently we are facing a problem to find a qualified staff to maintain/improve the system. We are looking for a professional Java Servlets, JSP, Ajax, and mySQL programmer who is willing to work part-time.

Free Technical Support and Workshops (See also section 7) Some of the workshops were available on the web through real-time or recorded webinars. Most of the workshop files were posted on the web for free. The URL was sent only to registered coaches. However, there were concerns from non-Michigan teams who could not attend workshops in Michigan. We encourage each site host to utilize our webinars or organize their own workshops using our materials if needed.

3.2 Competition Rules (Draft) rules for spring season will be available online earlier, perhaps in November. The game rule will be much clearer next year. We plan to design the Game scoring system with few negative scores. We are working on redesigning the Exhibition scoring system and rubrics. As included in associate categories, we plan to introduce a new challenge called UMC (Unknown Mission Challenge). Whole tasks will be 100% unknown until the day of the competition. Teams cannot get any help from non-team members. Categories for beginners like RoboParade and Bottle RoboSumo will be held throughout the year across the nation.

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3.3 Competition Event Organization

Volunteer Organization Some qualifying sites still did not fully use our online volunteer system. Volunteer recruitment must be started earlier. We found out that some site volunteers did not get T-shirts. If you were a site volunteer (not a volunteer for your competition team) and you did not get a T-shirt or a small gift, please let us know (robofest@LTU.edu). We had 643 people registered on the web and we deeply thank all the site volunteers. We recognized volunteers through PVSA (President's Volunteer Service Awards). See figure 19 for the number of registered site volunteers since 2005.

(Figure 19) Number of site volunteers since 2005

Hours of competitions The duration of the larger qualifying sites has always been an issue. We must work harder to fine tune the schedule to ensure finishing on time. We need to simplify competition procedures. Playing Fields/Tables The use of 6ft plastic folding tables will continue next year for Games and Bottle RoboSumo.

World Venue and Setup

Although Robofest does not allow adults in the pit area, there were still complaints that some adults were helping the students. We need more strict rules for proctoring both for games and exhibitions.

We needed more room for Exhibition area.

Alternating Game and Exhibition seemed fine. However, still the audience was not paying attention to the presentations of exhibition teams.

Judging Judge training must be conducted professionally, since some judges were not familiar with the Robofest 2013 rules. The Chief Judge’s role is very important and they need to be trained properly early on. We need to find a way to shorten the time in recording and calculating winners. Miscellaneous

To encourage teams to participate in earlier dates, we will continue to advance more teams to the Regional at earlier qualifiers.

Teams may be allowed to compete at more than one site.

We provided medals with student names on the back this 2012-13 year.

Currently LTU’s $2,000 scholarship is only for students of winning teams in World Championships. We plan to expand this opportunity to all Robofest participants. Regardless of the competition results, Robofest participants may apply for renewable Robofest Scholarship by submitting GPA, ACT or SAT scores to Lawrence Tech Robofest office.

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4. Revenue/Expense Summary Robofest budget results for the 2012-13 academic year (August 12, 2012 ~ August 17, 2013) were as follows: $65,259.91 in cash revenue including the transferred balance from 2012, $45,168.29 in expense of Robofest account, and $62,927.03 LTU cash support, which resulted in an overall loss of $42,835.41. Tables 3 ~ 5 show the summary of cash revenue and expenditure. Note that In-kind donations were not included in this table. $20,091.62 will be transferred to Robofest account for 2013-14 year.

Transfer from 2011-12 $27,566.34

Individual donors $1,872.57

Corporate/Org. Cash Sponsorship(*) $15,750.00

Team registration fees & other income $20,071.00

Total cash revenue $65,259.91

(*) In-kind donations not included

(Table 3) Cash Revenue

Workshop lead instructors' wage $7,568.50

Part-time staff wage (*) $420.00

Trophies, medals, medal ribbons, individual trophies, and plaques $8,471.13

Supplies (T-shirts, ribbons, playing fields, office supplies, volunteer gifts, signs, etc.) $15,894.37

Light equipments: DVD copier and bleacher $766.00

Table & tent rental for MI Regional and Worlds $2,588.40

Postage by USPS (*2) $44.95

Travel $1,874.65

Robot kits and parts $3,295.88

MI Regional and World Robofest food $2,954.96

Advertising and posters $1,289.45

Total $45,168.29

(*) Most part-time staff wages were supported by Math and Computer Science budget

(*2) UPS costs were covered by MCS budget

(Table 4) Robofest Account Expense Summary

Part-time staff wage support by MCS $45,626.52

Student assistant support by MCS $5,448.13

PBS program support by LTU Marketing Department $5,000.00

PBS program support by College of Arts and Sciences $1,500.00

PBS program support by MCS $3,000.00

UPS Mailing support by MCS $2,352.38

Total LTU Cash Support $62,927.03

(Table 5) LTU Support Expense Summary

Table 5 above does not include Lawrence Tech’s indirect monetary support. Other LTU contributions include: marketing, fundraising, and special events support by Univ Advancement; help desk laptop support; audio & visual equipments; teaching release time for Dr. Chung (Robofest Director) and Dr. Carwright (Robofest Program Manager); MCS Department administrative support; general office supplies (paper); printing; copying, phone and fax; office space; utilities; mailing and postage by Admissions & MCS department; campus facilities;

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video taping and editing – eLearning Services; use of office computers, laptops, computer network services on campus, Internet, etc. (Table 6) shows financial data history since 2008.

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Direct expense $84,509.58 $76,940.45 $95,573.22 $108,256.64 $85,520.10 $108,095.32

Cash revenue $61,982.80 $43,268.03 $64,602.32 $77,954.24 $56,543.22 $65,259.91

% income 73% 56% 68% 72% 66% 60%

# students served 1,647 1,763 1,443 1,641 1,706 1,809

Cost / student $51.31 $43.64 $66.23 $65.97 $50.13 $59.75

(Table 6) Robofest financial data summary

5. Assessment In order to assess the impact of autonomous robotics competitions in STEM education, Robofest students were asked to take online assessments before and after the competition. In addition, the same assessment was taken with another group of students who did not participate in the competition as a control group. Each assessment consisted of 8 multiple-choice STEM questions (6 math, 1 science, and 1 engineering). Additionally, we collected information on the students’ grade, gender, and whether or not they participated in Robofest, but no other identifying information. The pre- and post- assessments were implemented as a Google document.

Data from Robofest 2013 involves a comparison of math scores among 5th to 12th grade students who did and did not participate in either Robofest or other robotics competitions. The pre-assessment comparison comprised 167 students who participated in Robofest and 104 students who did not participate (the control group). The post-assessment comparison involved a subset of the students who took the pre-assessment: 75 Robofest students and 102 control students. As shown in Figure 23, Robofest students’ mean STEM scores improved from 4.23 to 4.56 (p = .19) and STEM scores from students in the control group improved from 3.74 to 4.26 (p < .10) .

(Figure 23) Robofest 2013 math assessment results

The higher participation rate from the control group (98% of the control group students took both the pre- and post- tests while only 45% of the Robofest students that took the pre- test also took the post-test) was a result

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that the control group took these assessments as part of their regular classroom, while the Robofest students took these assessments outside of the classroom.

6. Workshops, Summer Camps, and L2Bot R&D We had over 18 technical workshops of which some were webinars, 4 summer camp days, and a week long RoboMusic camp. In addition, we taught thousands of students for RET (Robotics, Engineering, and Technology) Days program at Macomb Community College. Robofest office also supported community enrichment classes in Canton, Michigan, taught by Dr. DeRose (ME adjunct professor). We supported them by providing our curriculum, robots, and laptops. CantonFun.org did registration and other administration work. We also supported classes at the Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School (FLICS) in Detroit. We participated in multiple outreach events such as Michigan Robotics Day at U of M Ann Arbor and Mesmore Elementary School Spring Fair. We especially thank The National Defense Industry Association (NDIA) Michigan Chapter, our Gold Sponsor, and others who supported on-site workshops. We had a good year in advanced robotics with L2Bots thanks to the generous donation from DENSO, our silver sponsor. The participants took the L2Bot built with the support from DENSO after the workshop to prepare for Vision Centric Robot Challenge 2013. Each L2Bot has DENSO logo as seen on the Figure 24. Especially this year, we developed Arduino and Raspberry PI controlled L2Bots using the fund from DENSO as seen on Figure 24. We plan to develop Raspberry PI to connect more robotics sensors, motors, and blocks.

(Figure 24) L2Bot with Raspberry PI sponsored by DENSO

The following Table 7 shows all the instructors and their classes this 2012~13 academic year. We thank the Lawrence Tech help desk for providing laptops for the workshops and camps. Most of the workshop materials were posted on the web for on-ground and online participants.

Lead Instructor Workshops or camps taught

Prof. Keith Bozin SRCC and RoboSumo

Dr. Chris Cartwright SRCC, Exhibition, RoboParade, and Bottle Sumo

Dr. CJ Chung RoboMusic Camp

Dr. Kurt Meister RoboSumo

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Dr. Fred Brauchler SRCC in RobotC

Dr. Joe DeRose SRCC

Prof. Jon Ruszala L2Bot

Mr. Chris Parker SRCC, Bottle Sumo, and RoboParade at the Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School (FLICS) in Detroit

(Table 7) Workshop and summer camp instructors

7. Recognition & Acknowledgement Team 72-1 Robohawks – Helios from Farmington Hills, Michigan introduced the first vision based robot for Robofest Game in Robofest’s 14 year history. They were using Raspberry PI for the image capture. Details about this historical robot will be introduced on Robot Magazine, Nov/Dec issue, 2013.

(Figure 25) The first vision-based Game robot by Team 72-1 Robohawks – Helios

A Sr. team 1615-1 from Plymouth Canton completed the VCRC (Vision Centric Robot Challenge) course perfectly. The time was 67 seconds for Round 1 and 172 seconds for Round 2. A team from China completed the course including the digit recognition task in 16 seconds for the 1st round and 19 seconds for the 2nd round. Many superb exhibition projects were entered this year. Team 1284-7, PACE Invaders from Canada (Coach: Lynda Yearwood) created omnidirectional robots from scratch using 3D printers. Another notable project was done by team 1244-1 WASPS from Canton, MI who won the 1st place Junior Exhibition award from World Championship. They demonstrated the autonomous traffic control system at Maker Faire Detroit in July 2013. All the winners of Robofest competitions as well as score sheets can be found on 2013 page at www.robofest.net.

Figure 1 on the first page of this document shows over 280 students from the 79 proud teams that advanced to World Robofest Championship this season. Each received a small individual trophy sponsored by our Platinum sponsor ROBOTIS shown LEFT in figure 26. Again this year, shown right in figure 26, each medal awarded to students in qualifying competitions was personalized with student name. Especially, we thank IEEE Region 4

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PACE and SEM (Southeastern Michigan Section) for their sponsorship for IEEE medals (see Figure 26) that were awarded to the registered participants of Robofest 2013 during the qualifying competitions.

(Figure 26) World Championship Individual Trophy Medal sponsored by ROBOTIS and participation medals sponsored

by IEEE SEM and Region 4 PACE.

Robofest was again fortunate this year to have 11 corporate/foundation Bronze or higher sponsors and 11 individual Friends level sponsors. Without their support, Robofest 2013 would not have been possible. Figure 27 shows all the logos of the corporate/foundation sponsors which were displayed on a large screen during the Michigan Regional and World Championship. The logos or names of the sponsor were also printed on qualifying programs as well as the Championship programs (see Figure 28). Bronze level or higher sponsor logos were printed on our official posters (see Figure 29). We estimate more than 1,000 spectactors and 500 students came to the championship events held at Lawrence Tech in Michigan. A list of all the sponsors can be found at www.robofest.net.

Aramark Anne and Stewart Harman CJ Chung celebrations-usa.com C. Thomas Scholl, CTS Marketing Dennis J. Howie Hsiao-Ping Moore Jane Tarakhovsky Joel Stein, ART/DESIGN Group KDA Trophies & Awards RECA

(Figure 27) Sponsor logos or names displayed and printed during the Championships at Lawrence Tech.

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(Figure 28) Some of official Robofest programs with official sponsor logos

We were also pleased to recognize the following 10 and 5 year anniversary coaches during the Michigan Regional and World Robofest. If we missed any coach reaching anniversary years, please contact Dr. Chung at chung@LTU.edu.

10 year: Nathan Barhorst (MI), Mary Cottrell (MI), and Elmer Santos (MI)

5 year: Jim Wade (TX), Theodore Armes (TX), Scott Shew (MI), Mark Gothberg (MI), Thas Yuwaraj (Canada), Mark Brudnak (MI), Paul Fedele (MI), Lynda Yearwood (Canada), Russell Abe (HI)

We thank Dr. Bindschadler, Chair of Math and Computer Science Department, for his support for Robofest since the inception in 2000. Math and Computer Science Department administrative assistant Marilyn Wiseman provided dedicated services for the processing of purchasing requests, H.R. related paper work, and many others. College of Arts and Sciences Dean Hsiao-Ping Moore and Associate Dean Glen Bauer supported Robofest in various ways.

(Figure 29) Robofest 2013 official poster

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Other people we must recognize include: Prof. Ken Cook, Prof. Jerry Cooper, Prof. Keith Nagara, and Tracy Kash. We would like to applaud all the work done by our great site host organizers in table 8 below. Without their dedication and sacrifice, the Robofest 2012-13 season would not have been possible.

(Table 8) Site Host Organizers (Sites organized by Lawrence Tech are excluded)

Robofest part-time staff members in the 2012-13 year were Teresa Dubois (Associate Coordinator), Wendy MacLennan, Susan Latos, Joseph S Power, William Power, Jonathan C Ruszala, Sarah Burcon, Tiffany Rochelle Platt, Chris Deloren Parker, and Christopher G Kawatsu. Part-time student assistants were Ann Elise Maten, Gordon Stein, Aimee P Shulman, Colin Patrick Ross, Chanmee Chung, Elijah V Fry, Rohan S Wagle, and Aviral Pandey. Robofest 2012-13 data shows that Robofest has achieved its mission: inspring students into STEM and supporting them. We are proud that Robofest has been continuously inexpensive since its inception in 2000, while providing a quality STEM education environment for students. We deeply thank everyone who has hosted, sponsored, supported, volunteered, and participated in the 14th Robofest for the 2012-2013 season.

Site ID Site Host Organizer Name(s)

Aurora_CAN Mike Hanson

Bangalore_India Imtiaz Ahmed Khan

Battle_Creek_MI Mark Gothberg

Brecksville_OH Naci Coleman

Canton_Achieve_MI Elizabeth Gaecke

Canton_MI Bharat Ajmera

CharlesWright_Det_MI Robert L. Smith

Cobo_Detroit_MI MACUL and Cliff DuPuy

CompLearningCtr_FL Emma Alaba

Culver_MN Cameron Lindner

Emerson_Detroit_MI Kunjan Vyas

Flint_MI Dr. Anca Sala

Fremont_CA Robert Benn

Galveston_TX Glenn Winstryg

HanyangUnv_KOR (*) Dr. Changsoo Han and Ms. HyoJin Jeon

Kapolei_HI Lynn Fujioka, isisHawaii

Medina_County_OH Jacinda Yonker

MexicoCity_MX Antonio Ramero Pliego

Redford_MTA_MI Kevin Marion

RoboParade_MacombCC LTU and Ms. Valerie Corbett

SugarLand_TX Jeanette Breton

Troy_Bethany_MI Mark Brudnak

Troy_MI Rahamath Shaik

UD_Detroit_MI Peter Guenther

Warren_MI Kevin Furgal, Jordan Polak

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If you find any errors or have comments on this report, please let us know (robofest@LTU.edu). We are looking forward to meeting you during the 15th annual Robofest 2013-14 season. Respectfully, August 30, 2013

CJ Chung, Ph.D. Professor of Computer Science Founder & Director of Robofest chung@LTU.edu

Chris Cartwright, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Mathematics Robofest Program Manager ccartwrig@LTU.edu

Lawrence Technological University Math and Computer Science Department 21000 West 10 Mile Rd. Southfield, MI 48075 www.LTU.edu