The IEEE Baltimore Section would like to thank the many IEEE members who helped to make the 23 rd Robot Challenge a great opportunity for students to learn about Engineering. This year was especially meaningful as we incorporated some significant changes introduced as a result of a detailed survey run last year, and it resulted in improved performance by all teams.

We also had some constraints imposed by a tight schedule (due to a wedding taking place at the Museum that evening), but everyone pulled together and we got everything finished without rushing the students or depriving them of the opportunity to learn from every phase of the project. The students’ interactions with the many engineers that supported this effort were particularly helpful to them, and it was evident that not only did the students benefit, but our engineers enjoyed talking to them and sharing their life experiences.

It took many people to put on this event, but we would particularly like to recognize the following individuals:

David Boyd: Chief Judge, Track events. David has been supporting us in this capacity since the start of this event, and did a great job getting all judges - many of whom were doing it for the first time - trained and scoring in a consistent manner.

Brian Sequeira: Chief Judge, Oral Presentations. This being the last of the events forming the Robot Challenge, we generally get a peak load at the end of the day, and Brian has often had a tough time finding enough rooms and Judges to handle all the teams. As a result of several factors he made it look very smooth this year, and processed all teams on, or ahead of schedule.

John Dentler: Chief Administrator. Though the judges have most of the interactions with the students, John and his wife Katie, were the point persons sorting paperwork and directing teams to the Track Tables and the Oral Presentation Rooms.

Rachel Jacobs: Teams Director and MC. She collected information from John and routed teams to their Track tables. She also prepared the material for the Award ceremony at the end of the day.

Scott Goedeke: Data Entry and the one responsible for getting all the judges and support staff on board. Scott wears many hats, but he was most noticeable at the Museum as the person entering all the data from the judges into our computer system for display on the monitor, and in preparation for the Awards.

Alex Miu: Software developer: Created the Real Time Scoring and Awards system that provided data updates to all teams. He made sure that all computers were operating smoothly.

Bill Semancik: Ran the PIT. In addition to his team of repair experts correcting any malfunctioning robots, Bill has also been handling our financial affairs.

Ben Menachery: Written Reports Judging and Mentors. With Barin Nag he organized the Mentors that supported each school and hosted the judging of the Written Reports at Northrup Grumman.

The following are the Judges who participated at the Robot Challenge on April 14, 2019. Many thanks for helping the students learn from this experience.

Doug Abraham
Syed Ahmad
Steve Bonk
Ako-Akeem Boyd
Drew Bunton
Tom Burke
Geoffrey Goldman
Boris Gramatikov
Victor Hernandez
Don Herres
Michael Hill
Craig Holcomb
Danny Jordan
Lisa Marvel
Ben Menachery
David Mutschler
Barin Nag
Sherwood Olson
Michael Pearse
Dawn Reyes
Joel Schneider
Dick Worsham
Nikolay Yarunin
Hong Yu

Additional Navy personnel brought in as judges by Drew Bunton were: Eric Oleen, Santiago Delgado, Rachel D., and Shella Kono. Thank you all very much!

The Chief Judges were David Boyd and Brian Sequeira.

The Judges who worked on reviewing the information in the Written Reports on 4/8 were:

Syed Ahmad
John Dentler
Boris Gramatikov
Craig Holcomb
Barin Nag
Tanner Horner
Ginny Dentler
Steve Drake
Scott Goedeke
Charlie Karr
Dave Kisak
Benaud Menachery
David Mutschler
Michael Pearse
Bill Semancik
Larry Stern
Dick Worsham

The Administrators who did a great job keeping everything running smoothly were:

John Dentler, Katie Dentler, Rachel Jacobs, Ariella Jacobs-Weiss, Scott Goedeke, Alex Miu and Sherwood Olson.

The Photographers, who took Team photos as the teams registered, and later took pictures during the Events were: Charlie Ng and Steve Satzberg. Also taking pictures were Jeff Weiss and Larry Stern. Look on our Web-site for the terrific photos they took that documented the event.

The PIT was the place all teams ran to when they had a mechanical or electrical problem. Bill Semancik’s group of experts included Dave Kisak, Larry Stern and Martin Tanenhaus. The kids owe you all a debt of gratitude!

Last but not least, we would like to thank Jeff Friedhoffer who not only runs our web-site www.robotchallenge.com and posted the Documents, Photographs and Scores, but also handled the on-line Team Registration system that enabled us to keep track of all the teams.

Finally we’d like to thank the IEEE Baltimore Section and its Officers (Ken Wong, Chair), who have provided the funding and support that has allowed this event to take place for the past 23 years. We believe the above listed members and associates are indeed making a difference to the lives of our students, and we’re very grateful for the time they have devoted to the project. I am honored to be among them.

Neville Jacobs, Director, Student Activities