ARMY AL&T
FRC [FIRST Robotics] Competitions aligned with our PPE- making initiative during those critical first 10 weeks of the pandemic. Fifty people just like me banded together, one by one, to craft seriously robust medical-quality face shields when it was needed most.”
Tese kinds of skills and ingenuity are what he has been imparting upon Team Aperture 3142 and intends to continue passing along to an even wider range of students through Aperture Fabric8.
REAL WORLD SOLUTIONS According to Hofmann, kids who join FIRST Robotics teams acquire industry-standard software skills. To ensure for a more immersive experience, he plans to expand beyond Newton High School’s STEM Lab, securing 6,000 square feet of warehouse space to use as Fabric8’s robotics lab, located within a building at TechFlex, a local business and longtime supporter of the Aper- ture 3142 robotics team.
“Moving to a commercial space and all those startup dynamic fixed costs seems overwhelming now, but as each season goes by, our learning curve should get smaller,” he said. “Being in complete control of our own destiny in a new location can springboard into innovative ways to serve and inspire students and adults to become ‘tinkerpreneurs’ ”—his term for those who have an idea to develop a useful project but lack the funding, machinery and hand tools to overcome that shortfall.
“We use that muscle sitting on top of your shoulders, no concus- sions in the sport of robotics. Earn a scholarship, internship or apprenticeship. Ten you can turn pro on day one.” Hofmann said if he had to guess, he predicts that 75 percent of existing students someday will own, run or manage a business.
“I had four students return during the eight-day fair [New Jersey State Fair in Augusta, held Aug. 4-12] from our original team 15 years ago. One by one they stopped in to say hello and catch up on life’s happenings. Each one now has a great job; each one has thanked me for helping open their eyes during their impression- able years as a youth,” Hofmann said.
Aperture Fabric8 Inc. is designed to improve the profitability and competitiveness of any of New Jersey’s 9,500 manufacturers, and according to Hofmann, would “survive merely on the generosity of STEM partners,” which are currently Torlabs, Mira Plastics, Marotta, Ronetco, TechFlex and Johnson & Johnson. “Return on investment will become realized when the youth we serve have joined our area manufacturing workforce,” he said.
CONCLUSION Recalling the early days of the Picatinny STEM sponsorship program, Hofmann said, “Ed [Col. Petersen] used to often say, ‘Win the teacher, win the war. Lose the teacher, lose the war.’ ” Meaning that students join robotics teams as freshmen and in four years graduate and head off to well-regarded engineering schools. Ten the training of new recruits (students, coaches, mentors) begins once more.
It’s an ebb and flow of maturity that develops with experience and confidence as each season passes. “Mentors have stayed on even with their own children graduating from college. Coaches and mentors find a balance between who is in charge, helping each other support the students with sub-team mentoring and advice during the year,” he said. Te competition season lasts poten- tially four months. However, robotics teams conduct programs, outreach and meetings 12 months a year.
Aperture 3142 will always be a FIRST Robotics Competition team, Hofmann said. But his vision for Fabric8 is bigger: To become a resource for all of Sussex County schools and youth groups to learn from studio-based educational workshops provided by volunteers within the community who have back- grounds in education, technology and business. With the support of the DEVCOM Armaments Center, Aperture Fabric8 can not only develop the model, but can provide resources to help spread the program throughout the tri-state area.
For more information, contact the DEVCOM Armaments Center STEM Outreach at
https://ac.ccdc.army.mil/outreach/ STEM/
index.aspx, or Picatinny STEM on Facebook at https://
www.facebook.com/PICASTEM.
CHERYL MARINO provides contract support to the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as a writer and editor for Army AL&T magazine and Network Runners Inc. Prior to USAASC, she served as a technical report editor at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center (formerly ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal for five years. She holds a B.A. in communications from Seton Hall University and has more than 20 years of writing and editing experience in both the government and private sectors.
https://asc.ar my.mil
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