[slide ] [notes]

[1] - introduction slide

[2 - who are we?] 
	A group of under/postgraduates ...
	range of disciplines aeronautical - electronic
	we organise and fund a robotics competition for 16-18 year old college students

[3 - Our Aim] 
	why are we doing this
	rob - previous experiences/influences

[4 - What]
	Design and build our own kit
	ship it to schools
	they take our kit and build robots in teams of 6 students
	building happens in timetabled curriculum activity slot
	In designing our own kit we learn ourselves
	We provide electronics which abstracts implementation without limiting the creative potential - students can go as low as they like
	
[5 - robot] 
	over the course of 6 months teams work on building their robot 
	to complete a given task/s in a series of inter school rounds/stages
	portray size of robot
	
[6 - arena]
	At easter the teams converge at the university of southampton to pit their robots against each other
	describe the competition task

[7 - mentoring]
	each week before the comp, visits from mentors
	reasons
		guidance 
		technical help
		monitor progress
		feedback
		chance for students to speak to university students from engineering
	
[8 - what we are not]
	we are not robot wars or lego mindstorm
	RW is rc, its been done before, technically less interesting, plenty of oportunities to get involved in Remote control projects anyway
	Lego is expensive and difficult to hack, get to the lower levels, restrictive


[9 - !NEW! - What we are] 
	what's special about us

[10 -Software]
	we can't bring stuff into the school
	very restrictive 'locked down' systems
	forced to use a web based interface
	students are writing software which they otherwise wouldn't be incouraged to do
	
[11 - Competition]
	we've run this for one year now
	plans to expand..

[12 - !NEW! - Funding] 
	mixture of local business
	university ECS
	SCA
	large business - motorola
	
[13 - !NEW! - Reflections]
	was it valuable?
	experience
	benefits for us
	self confidence
	technical degree -> put into context
	subsequent achievements

Sue White suggestions:

	how much staff time does it take	
	what is the cost
	is it disruptive
	what demographics do we cross