A new robotics team is hoping that with Picatinny Arsenal’s help, it can get a wider range of youngsters involved in STEM.
by Cheryl Marino
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs are invaluable for nurturing critical thinking, innovation and problem-solving skills—ultimately driving progress, societal contribution and economic growth. Teachers of these subjects, like New Jersey educator James Hofmann, know this and the importance of teaching kids about the world around them in a fun, hands-on manner; something he has done throughout his 31-year career teaching technology in the Newton Public School District.
After five years in Newton High School’s STEM Lab and 15 years coaching a local Picatinny Arsenal-sponsored varsity robotics team—called Aperture 3142, which he founded in 2009—he strongly believes that hands-on STEM instruction should be available to all interested students. Even beyond their locale.
Now retired, Hofmann is forming a new nonprofit robotics team called Aperture Fabric8 Inc., for which he plans to seek Picatinny sponsorship. The new nonprofit would be open to all of Sussex County, New Jersey. Hofmann hopes it will act as a conduit for all high school robotics teams throughout the tri-state area of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
The concept of Fabric8 would be much like a youth traveling soccer team or a multidistrict Little League Baseball association. A student would have the opportunity to join their local school varsity robotics team (if one is offered) or join a multidistrict, countywide team like Fabric8, or both.
“It’s needed in our area and beyond,” Hofmann said. “It’s scalable. And if this goes as I think, it can be easily shared and transferred to other counties in New Jersey using FIRST [For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology] Robotics teams as the motherboard.”
TEAMMATE TURNED MENTOR: Dominic Estanislao, a mentor for the FIRST Robotics Competition Team 3314 Mechanical Mustangs, holds the winning banner at the 2023 New England FIRST Southeast Massachusetts District Event, held March 3-5, 2023, in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. (Photo by Savannah Garcia, Team 3314 Mechanical Mustangs senior)
FIRST THINGS FIRST
FIRST Robotics is a not-for-profit international organization that partners with local and regional school districts to prepare young people for the future through a suite of inclusive, team-based robotics programs. Team Aperture 3142 is aligned (and Fabric8 will be aligned) with FIRST Robotics, now in its 32nd year of competition.
Through FIRST Robotics programs (grades pre-K through 12, ages 4-18), teams from across the globe enter FIRST Robotics Competitions each season during a six-week period to build remote-control robots capable of competing with other robots. More than 3,300 FIRST Robotics Competition teams competed during the 2023 season, with 619 teams advancing to the international FIRST Championship in Houston scheduled in April 2024.
Picatinny Arsenal supports FIRST Robotics teams and played a key role as the founding sponsor of Team Aperture 3142—underscoring the arsenal’s commitment to promoting STEM education and fostering global competitiveness. Hofmann’s newly formed nonprofit, Fabric8, will also operate within the FIRST Robotics team framework and develop a community makerspace for young engineering hopefuls in grades five through 12.
The difference with Fabric8, Hofmann said, is that it has potential for a wider community reach than Team Aperture 3142, which is currently limited to Newton, Green Township and Andover, New Jersey, schools. The newly proposed Fabric8 will open the door for all Sussex County schools and beyond to participate—building an expanded network that he believes will boost Picatinny Arsenal’s STEM office reach.
“FIRST [Robotics] teams offer students the opportunity to solve problems, collaborate, design, broadcast, make change, engage legislators and offer community service,” Hofmann said. “It teaches students the career paths possible and also prepares them for the ones not yet innovated.” It’s as close to real-world engineering as a student can get, he said.
Dominic Estanislao, a former FIRST Robotics team member and an engineer at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center (DEVCOM AC), said he initially had joined the robotics team to take pictures and videos, but shortly thereafter began making parts for robots and supporting the remote-control drive team. It became clear which direction his career was heading, so he joined the Armaments Center as an intern, while he pursued his degree at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. After graduation, Estanislao was hired as a full-time mechanical engineer at DEVCOM Armament Center’s Analysis, Materials and Prototyping Directorate and continues to mentor his alma mater, Team 3314 Mechanical Mustangs, which he has been a part of for a decade.
“FIRST Robotics is a unique opportunity that can inspire students that are not sure what they want to do in life to pursue STEM. Picatinny STEM has been a sponsor of [FIRST Robotics Competition] Team 3314 since the early days of the team’s existence and an integral part of the program’s development to what it is today,” he said.
Being part of a FIRST Robotics Competition team has been “a great experience,” Estanislao said. As a high school student, he was able to work alongside engineers to design, build and field a robot in a short amount of time. As a mentor, he said, robotics provides opportunities to use different manufacturing tools than he usually uses for his job, so it not only benefits the students but the mentors, too.
“As an alumni and current mentor, I could not be prouder of my team’s achievements,” he said. “Being on my team now as an engineer I have realized that as a student you build robots, but as a mentor you build people.”
IN GOOD HANDS: James Hofmann handing the ball—used by robots to shoot hoops into baskets—off to his replacement, Ciana Roman, at the New Jersey State Fair, held at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, New Jersey, Aug. 4-12, 2023. Roman will be teaching technology at Newton High School and coaching Team Aperture 3142 for the 2023-2024 season. (Photo courtesy of Caitlin Bailey, mentor and 2018 team captain, Team Aperture 3142)
SHARED VISION
Hofmann’s commitment to igniting inspiration among young minds within the realm of STEM subjects resonates with Picatinny Arsenal’s mission of fostering education and the cultivation of a passion for STEM fields designed to inspire those like Estanislao, and the next generation(s) of our future workforce. Teaming up with the DEVCOM Armaments Center to secure sponsorship from Picatinny Arsenal, Hofmann said, would foster growth for Fabric8 and, at the same time, aid the arsenal’s STEM office goals and objectives.
Picatinny Arsenal has long supported outreach events to encourage students to pursue careers in STEM. FIRST Robotics Competition and Team Aperture 3142 have been sponsored by the arsenal’s largest organization, the DEVCOM Armaments Center and DOD STEM, since 2009, initiated under the late Col. Edward Petersen’s mentorship and control and making it the first and oldest Picatinny STEM-sponsored team.
Since the program’s inception, Team Aperture 3142 has received about $5,000 in DOD funding each year—more if the team advances to the world competition. For Fabric8 to be considered for similar funding, Hofmann would need to submit a proposal to DEVCOM headquarters, which would determine which teams are approved for funding through federal grants. Currently, Hofmann is in the final stages of legally establishing Fabric8 as a nonprofit in the state of New Jersey, which he said is a slow process. Once finalized, plans can move forward.
FIRST Robotics operates under two grants. One from DEVCOM DOD STEM (Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Research and Engineering/Office of Basic Research, which provides FIRST Robotics with funding for tools, services and travel for competitions) and one from Picatinny STEM (which provides mentoring support to engineers, scientists or others in FIRST Robotics teams in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania).
DEVCOM Armaments Center currently supports approximately 1,500 teams with a budget for FIRST Robotics estimated at $250,000, which includes mentoring. Estanislao is one of 60 professionals supporting the 2023-2024 season, Stacey Yauch is another.
“When I was first approached by a fellow DEVCOM AC mentor who was encouraging me to become involved with robotics, I honestly dismissed it,” said Yauch, a chemical engineer at the Armaments Center who has been mentoring FIRST Robotics Competition Team Aperture 3142 (ages 14-18, grades 9-12) since 2013. “I thought, ‘What can robotics do?’ Then I went to a FRC [FIRST Robotics] competition and was overwhelmed by what I saw and was immediately hooked.”
As she became more involved in the program, she said it became very evident that the robot was a tool for kids to learn not only about science and technology, but to learn to work together, to communicate effectively, to learn from mistakes, to continue to improve and to never give up. “Helping the kids realize what they are capable of is why I continue to mentor,” she said.
Mentors receive continuous learning points and time away from work while mentoring, but, she said, most of the time it’s simply volunteer. “During the FRC build and competition season, mentors can typically work with a team for four to five hours per night every night of the week and eight-plus hours a day on weekends for 10-plus straight weeks,” she said. “It’s intense!”
IT TAKES TEAMWORK: Members of Team Aperture 3142 posing in front of their STEM barn at the New Jersey State Fair, held at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, New Jersey, Aug. 4-12, 2023. From left Ryan Wuitik, Salvador Serillo, Hunter DeMartin, Rachel Porzilli and Andreana DeMartin. (Photo provided by Caitlin Bailey, mentor and 2018 team captain, Team Aperture 3142)
REAL WORLD PROBLEMS
All the intensity is for a worthwhile cause when it comes to equipping kids for real-life situations. According to Hofmann, “Students so desperately need to accumulate life skills with hands-on tools and machinery, and they love working with real world challenges such as the ones FIRST Competitions offer.”
Hofmann’s words were put into action in 2020. At the height of the pandemic when doctors, nurses and staff at area hospitals were scrambling for masks, Aperture 3142 students got a firsthand look at how the technology skills they’ve acquired can be of significant value in the real world.
“The lessons of COVID showed us how important making our own PPE [personal protective equipment] was,” Hofmann said. Protective equipment was scarce, but desperately needed at ground zero health care facilities like Newark University Hospital, where his son Justin was a third-year physician. Rather than sit around feeling helpless, Hofmann fired up a 3D printer in his basement, and two additional 3D printers at Newton High School, and designed a 9-by-9 inch clear plastic, reusable face shield prototype for area hospitals. Then, with the help of 50 students, teachers, his family and other business networking partners who provided the manpower and additional 3D printing machines, he was able to produce 5,000 face shields that health care professionals and first responders could use to safely treat patients.
“My wife, Mandy, and our daughter, Samantha, were in this trench night and day with me during those first 10 weeks,” he said. “Working from our basement, which was converted into a 3D printing farm and PPE distribution center. It was fast and furious, but we know we helped save lives.”
Just a few months before, Hofmann had attended a beneficial Picatinny-hosted STEM workshop that provided 3D printer training to New Jersey educators with instruction on how to properly set up, operate and maintain printers; use computer-aided design software; and access online resources to create 3D-printed projects and lessons that may be included in the classroom. Schools were housing 3D printers, but they came without instruction, and teachers had no idea how to use them. The workshop was also an opportunity to network with other teachers, which laid the foundation for Hofmann’s teacher and student recruitment initiative.
“The impact that training event had on all of us definitely helped prepare us for what unfolded during those early pandemic days,” he said. “Some of those teachers who I had already known from 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.”
These 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.
TEAM SPIRIT: Dominic Estanislao, center, and the Mechanical Mustangs drive team proudly display their winning trophy and banner from the FIRST Mid-Atlantic District Championship, held April 6-8, 2023, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. (Photo courtesy of Dominic Estanislao and FIRST Mid-Atlantic)
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 Aperture 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 concussions in the sport of robotics. Earn a scholarship, internship or apprenticeship. Then 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 impressionable 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 Thorlabs, 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. Then 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. The competition season lasts potentially 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 backgrounds 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 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.
