Xyla is the Founder and CEO of Parihug, a company focused on intergrating emotions and technology to create a fuller digital experience. She participated in her high school’s robotics program before leading Case Western Reserve University’s NASA Robotics Team, where she is a rising senior. Parihug launched a Kickstarter campaign in April with their first product, Pari, internet connected plushies that let loved ones hug each other from thousands of miles away.
Why the only thing better than success is failure: an anti-resume
From exploding circuit boards to botched demos to embarrassing moments, Xyla’s road to success has been paved with previous failures. Although it is hard to see in the moment, the more you fail, the more you will succeed. So instead of hiding from them, Xyla is going to go over some the most dazzling, glorious, crash-and-burn failures that led her to where she is today.
Dr. Frank Hardin serves as the youth education manager for the Noble Reserch Institute in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where he can his team advance the mission of the Noble Research Institute by delivering agricultural/science-based educational programs and experiences to student and educator audiences. Prior to his current position, he was a postdoctoral fellow in a Noble Research Institute laboratory, where he worked on reducing lignin content in switchgrass. Hardin earned three degrees (bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral) in cellular biology with an emphasis on molecular and biochemical parasitology from the University of Georgia.
Robotics in Agriculture: Tomorrow’s Technology for Today’s Challenges
The mission of the Noble Foundation is to deliver solutions to great agricultural challenges. The vision of the Noble Foundation is to be the preeminent agricultural research institute, a trusted source of transformational knowledge and products, education and technology to advance agriculture and land stewardship.
Dane Schoelen is a Norman native who graduated this spring with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma. He has a passion for space and robotics which has led him to participate in Botball in middle and high school, carry out undergraduate research with planetary rovers under Dr. David Miller and intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This August, Dane will be starting a career at JPL as a Robotics Engineer in the Extreme Environment Robotics Group. Dane loves to backpacking in national parks and hopes to go to space in his lifetime, in person or vicariously through a robotic explorer.
Jennifer Droke is an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Oklahoma. Her passions for science and engineering (especially robotics) began at a young age, leading, in high school, to her participating in Robotics and attending the Francis Tuttle Pre-Engineering Academy. Jennifer received her first internship at a STEM education startup the summer before starting college. In addition to robotics, she is passionate about applying human-centered design to engineering and using science and engineering to facilitate social change. At OU, Jennifer is currently an undergraduate researcher, working on rover teleoperation research with Dr. David Miller.
The goal of the conference sessions is to provide an opportunity to share ideas on the topics listed below. We encourage original thinking on topics as detailed as technical innovations and as broad as ethics and robotics.
A Girls Perspective on STEM
Ellie Thurston – Norman High School
Autonomous Robotics
Eric Visser – Pembroke High School
The Creation of an Effective Robot
Nathaniel Oo – Dead Robot Society
Running Efficiently with Robotics
Brendan Murphy – Pembroke High School
Gears and Gear Chains
Cooper Grund – PHS Robotics
Intent of Botball Coalition
Various Botball Teams – International Collaboration
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Botball
Elvin Liu, Michael Bock, Jacob Barats – Explorer Post 1010
Mission EDU
Daniel Swoboda, Daniel Honies, Christoph Käferle, Markus Pinter, Florian Ungersböck, Raphael Weinfurter – Secondary Technical College, Wiener Neustadt
Making HTTPS and Anonymity Networks Slightly More Secure (Or: How I’m Using My Botball Skill Set in the Privacy/Security Field)
Jeremy Rand – The Namecoin Project / Norman Advanced Robotics Alumni
Game Strategy: Optimizing Strategy Using the Binary Knapsack Algorithm
Tommy Yang – Menlo School
Botball Revolution – Print your own Parts
Viktoria Zach – Talentehaus St.Polten, Austria
Preparing for Competition
Colton Cappa – Pembroke High School
Programming for Failure
Annaleise Kealiher – The Bots Who Say Ni
Robotics and the Community: A Constructive Relationship
Ethan Rankin – Pembroke High School
Controlling the Designs
Gregory Kaplowitz, Ryan Guimares, Riley Larsen – Pembroke High School
The Effects of Technology
Shun Akiya and Duke Swajian – Palm Desert Charter Middle School
Use of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Algorithm and Tracking-LearningDetection Algorithm in Botball Competition
Yimo Xu – Qingdao No.2 Middle School
fl0w – A Development Environment for the KIPR Wallaby
Philip Trauner, Christoph Heiss, Sebastian Schaffler, Nico Kratky, Nico Leidenfrost, Christine Zeh, Sascha Zemann – Secondary Technical College, Wiener Neustadt
Motion Planning for Simple Two-Wheeled Robots
Ronald I. Greenberg and Jeffery M. Karp – Loyola University Chicago