This year's challenge revolves around
one of the largest and fastest-growing
professional sectors in the world...STEM.
With major organizations estimating that
between 2018 and 2028, the number
of STEM jobs will increase by 13 percent
as opposed to 9 percent from non-STEM
jobs. It is critical that youth begin to
build the skills and knowledge needed to
occupy these positions.
Additionally, the US will need an
additional 1 million plus STEM
professionals over the next 10 years than
we are currently projected to produce.
For these reasons, each task this year
will revolve around STEM related fields
and concepts and will help illuminate
some of the work that stem professionals do.
This year's competition will
take place at the McLean County
fairground in Bloomington Illinois on
Saturday, May 11 2019. Team registration
will open February 1, 2019, and will close
March 31,  2019. Now here are the rules
1. Teams must consist of three to ten
youth aged 8 through 18. To participate,
youth must be an enrolled member of 4-H
prior to the event. 2. Any commercially
available or homemade robot may be used and any material may be used in the
construction of the robot in field 3 the
playing field is a standard FIRST LEGO
League or FLL table constructed using a
4x8 sheet of plywood with two by four
walls resulting in a 45 inch by 93 inch
playing surface for while you may use up
to two environments to complete many of
the tasks only one environment may be
scoring at a time for your points to be
considered East action must be done in
succession not necessarily in order this
means that you do not have to do task
one than task two but rather can
complete each task in whatever order you
want however you must complete each task
in full before doing work on the
next ask five the robots will have three
minutes complete their program tasks
once the robot and timer have started
human team members cannot touch any
robots or anything on the field without
penalty 6 no remote controls will be
allowed setting all of our BOTS must
start the table run touching a wall at
least 6 inches from the first task 8
items must begin at least 12 inches from
their target 9 you may only use one
programmable brick per robot tin when
transporting taking placing and/or
delivering objects from one location to
another
remember no guide rails as an FLL the
robot does not need to be in contact
with the object for the entire task as
long as a robot initiates the task 11
each target building or drop-off
location must be separate and distinct
no one building may have dual purposes
12 items must be delivered individually
13 items do not need to physically look
like what they represent but must be
clearly labeled for the judges and these
are your tests decoration decorate your
sim bot as something technology themed
that your team has a personal interest
in ie
computer parts motherboards circuits etc
points will be awarded per stand by
decorating broken glass and a busy lab
it is common for beakers to fall and
break into many jagged pieces sweep up a
broken B here that has been cracked into
four different pieces points will be
awarded per piece swept into a 2d waste
bin with more points awarded per piece
swept into a 3d waste bin with four
sides in an open-top additional points
will be awarded if the broken glass is
placed randomly on the board by your
judge chemical mixing mixing chemicals
with
qualities is a key skill needed to
become a successful chemists mix
chemicals into a beaker by pouring four
chemicals one at a time bonus points
will be awarded if done with two BOTS
pouring two chemicals each into the same
beaker optics light has the ability to
be absorbed reflected or refracted
follow the path of reflected light that
is bouncing off up to six mirrors or
five straight path lines using sensors
the score points your step bottle is
clearly follow the path of light
bouncing from Mirror to mirror simply
navigating past the mirror will not
score you points if the simba knocks
over a mirror that here will not be
included in the calculation of the
additional points bonus points will be
awarded if your second bot follows a
similar path of a different color
organ transplant modern medicine has
advanced the point that malfunctioning
organs can be surgically removed and
replaced by functioning organs of the
same blood or tissue type remove a bad
heart from a drawn body
placing it in a biohazard container and
replacing it with a good heart from the
same location bonus points will be
awarded if completed using two sim BOTS
with one removing the heart and the
other replacing it in the same location
debugging when coding it only takes a
single incorrect character to ruin an
entire code or program debug the line of
code using different color blocks to
denote bugs in a computer terminal using
red yellow green blue and black color
blocks remove all colors but read from
the line of code in the terminal coding
blocks will be randomly ordered in the
location of your choosing by the judges
make a phone call with phones being one
of the most used devices on the planet
keeping in touch with other sim
professionals is just a call away make
an audible phone call during your
challenge while pacing back and forth
points will be awarded if one sim bak
completes the task with bonus points if
both stand busts make the phone call in
sync broken tech the maker movement has
inspired dr wires to fix and/or rebuild
broken technologies rebuild a broken
piece of technology by replacing them
malfunctioning pieces for new pieces
each piece of technology may be made up
of two to five pieces with one piece
staying in place as a functioning tech
points will be awarded per piece
replaced with bonus points awarded if
two sim box complete this challenge
together gearbox and engineering the use
of gears can help to increase or
decrease torque by using a crank and a
set of gears place the gear on a shaft
next to an already placed gear and shaft
the Simba must crank Lee here two times
clockwise and two times counterclockwise
causing both sets of years to move bonus
points will be awarded if one baht
places a year and the other baht cranks
bridge-building civil engineers are
tasked with building publicly used
structures including roads and bridges
build a bridge by placing two blocks of
any shape at either end of the bridge
and one spanning piece across the top of
the blocks the bridge must be at least 2
inches tall and 6 inches long and more
points awarded if the bridge is over 10
inches long additional bonus points will
be awarded if one of the symbols crosses
the bridge circuitry all electric base
technologies require the use of simple
to complex circuits to supply power to
the device or tech complete a circuit by
connecting one end of a wire to a
positive terminal of the battery
and the other end of the wire to the
negative terminal of the battery points
will be awarded if the circuit is
complete with bonus points awarded if
the circuit powers a real light computer
built with today's technology resources
computers can be built from a variety of
components readily available to
consumers collect computer parts from a
computer scrap yard build a PC on a desk
using a computer screen CPU fan keyboard
and mouse points will be awarded for
each piece added to the build the bonus
points awarded if all 5 pieces are
successfully added to the build on the
best geometry basic geometry can be seen
in daily use by a variety of simple
questions have your Simba draw shape
with a pen or pencil more points will be
awarded if the robot grabs the pin or
pencil from the field with bonus points
awarded at the bot drops the pen or
pencil at the end of the task
coordinate planes coordinate planes help
mathematicians visualize linear
equations while doing anything from
basic algebra to calculus place a
location marker like those seen on GPS
apps in each of the four coordinates of
your plane field points will only be
awarded if all four markers are placed
with one in each coordinate plane bonus
points will be awarded if to stem BOTS
place two coordinates each Newton's
apple it is said that Isaac Newton
discovered gravity when an apple fell on
his head while sitting under a tree in
this test you will knock an apple off of
the 12-inch tree points will be awarded
if your Simba knocks the Apple off the
tree with more points awarded at the
Apple lands on the stem by bonus points
will be awarded if one Simba knocks the
Apple off the tree and it lands on the
second Simba and those were your tasks
the 2019 stem bot competition will be
taking place Saturday May 11 on the
McLean County Fairgrounds in Bloomington
Illinois for complete set of rules and
registration please visit the Illinois
4-h state robotics page at the link
below also please join our Facebook
group for the most up-to-date
information and latest updates on the
competition
