Get a GEARS Membership.

Become a GEARS member and stake your claim on a fun future with robotics and technology.

GEARS is Garrett County’s year-round engineering & robotics “club”, which supports the existing FIRST Robotics teams as well as creating its own engineering competitions, camps, and robot construction projects.

Our motto is: Inquire – Invent – Construct - Compete

Membership fees are as follows:

SeaPerch Camp Participants

SeaPerch Camp Participants

At the end of Day-Four, everyone has built their robot and competed in several mission/competitions. These included the "Treasure Hunt", the "Cone Push" and the "Enviromental Cleanup".

Front row are helpers: Shaun, Jarad and Nick.
Second Row are pilots: Zack, Ben, Kendrick, Jeff, T.J., Eliza and Peter.
Back Row: Mentor: Mr. Phil, Pilots: Blake, Justin, Aaron, Levi, Gordon, Luke, Derrick, Sam and Mentor: Ms. Arlene.

SeaPerch ROV testing in the new tank.

SeaPerch ROV testing in the new tank.

Sunday was spent preparing for the new SeaPerch camp at GEARS.

Nick, Jarod, Shawn and Steph spent the day curring, drilling, gluing and soldering.

Here's Nick and Jarod running the SeaPerch through it's paces.

GEARS receives underwater test tank

GEARS receives underwater test tank

GEARS received delivery of the fantastic underwater test-tank: designed, built and donated by Garrett Container Systems (GCS).

Here you see the tank (still waiting to be filled up) in front of the rack of SeaPerch kits that the kids will be using in their upcoming camp.

Shown with the tank is Shawn Fike, the Engineer at GCS responsible for the tank's design.

GEARS Newsletter: Volume 2 Issue 1 (6/11/2008)

Download this issue.

Features:

  • New SeaPerch Underwater Experience Camp.
  • Summer Tech Camp Schedule
  • FLL Season Wrapup
  • FRC Season Wrapup.
  • Super Sugo planned for 4th July weekend

Interesting discussion with President of MIT

I was surfing the SeaPerch site, and found this really interesting conversation with Susan Hockfield, President MIT.

Charlie Rose is such a great interviewer, and Ms. Hockfield is compelling when she talks about her fears and hopes for MIT and America's future in higher education.

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SEAPerch Underwater Robot Competition

This weekend, Steve Storck and I took a drive to watch the underwater robot competition at George Mason University in Fairfax VA.

It was a high school competition that used the robots that the kids built as part of their Introduction to Engineering classes one semester.

It was a lot of fun, and I've put together a video from the event (thanks to Steve for remembering to bring his camera)

It's Here on YouTube

NeXTGEN wins First Place for Research Quality at Atlanta.

NeXTGEN wins First Place for Research Quality at Atlanta.

NeXTGEN's energy audit of the Swan Meadows School, and proposal for using a Methane Digester to produce Electricity (Cow Power) got the judge's attention, and won them First Place (Best in the world) for research quality.

Shown in the picture are:
Front: Arlene
2nd Row: Stephanie, Emily, Colin, Sam, Aaron, Nick, Levi,Sandy & Ronnie
Back: Phil & Willie

FLL Team NeXTGEN wins first place for Research Project

Cow Power paid off BIG-TIME for NeXTGEN at the 2008 World Festival in Atlanta Georgia.

Their energy audit of the Swan Meadows School, and proposal for using a Methane Digester to produce Electricity (Cow Power) got the judge's attention, and won them a first place (Best in the world) for research quality.

NeXTGEN also got a table score of 399 out of 400 on practice-day, and an "official" score of 392 out of 400 on game day. Unfortunately, many teams scored a perfect 400, which took NeXTGEN out of the running for a trophy.

Garrett FRC and FLL teams attend FIRST Championship

04/16/2008 - 8:00am
04/19/2008 - 10:00pm

FIRST LEGO League Team 2764 (NeXTGEN) and FIRST Robotics Competition Team 1629 (GaCo) will be attending the 2008 Championship Event/World Festival at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia.

Click Here for event information.

Or Download the agenda.