Black Hills Robotics Endowment

Black Hills Robotics is working with the Black Hills Area Community Foundation to build a $100,000 endowment. They will match 20% so we only need to raise 80k to hit our 100k goal!

This endowment would provide $5k every year in perpetuity, for Black Hills Robotics Foundation to continue its good work.

Our first priority with this funding is to help new teams get started. So please help us hit that goal first!

Additionally we would use these funds to

Host more tournaments in the Black Hills

The tournaments and competition is the heart beat of Robotics. It is what forces students to make tough decisions to be ready in time. Its where they objectively learn, what works, and what doesn't. If they have been stuck, its where they get to see how other teams solved the problem. 

Hosting Tournaments is hard (and that is why School of Mines chose not to host their tournament this year). BHRF can make it easier on the hosts so we see more tournaments moving forward. How?

By purchasing 3 fields and possibly 3 sets of game elements specifically for tournaments, so hosts and supporting teams don't have to spend hours taking apart their Robotics Lab.

By setting up a trailer like East River has, so that everything you need is "ready to go" in the trailer.

By providing a modest kick back for the supporting VexU team (School of Mines). Without the support they provide to MS and HS Vex Robotics as referees at our tournaments we wouldn't have any. Its a win-win to make it worth their while and help keep their program alive (as they often lose a day and a half supporting us).

Host Special Events

We would love to host an annual "Robot In One Day" kick off event over the summer. 

Imagine all the robotics students throughout the black hills, coming together for a single day in July / August

With a common goal, of building "something" that can compete in the new game, in one day!

This greatly accelerates "learning" the game, and creates a massive knowledge transfer from the more skilled HS seniors down to our MS students, where they get to see early in the season some functioning manipulators (and failures) very early in the season. 

Not only would this create momentum for the competitive season, but it helps the students feel like they are part of a bigger community. The energy at the event can be inspiring. And the connections they make can lead to support across teams that often takes years to establish.

With funding BHRF can help make this event a success by providing the venue, food, prizes, a guest speaker, and more. 

Start a Black Hills Competition League

Our current competitive format are tournaments, but some areas have leagues. 

Leagues have the benefit of not requiring so much time as you might only have a few matches in an evening instead of an entire Saturday (plus travel Friday for our East River tournaments)

Once we have enough teams in the Black Hills we could start a league so the students are getting more feedback about what is working and not working (not just on their robot, but on others!)

Host Specialized Workshops on more Advanced Concepts

There are so many skills involved in Robotics, but it is hard to justify putting together workshops when the audience might only be a few kids. 

As we grow the robotics community, we can start to see workshops advancing the community knowledge on things like

CAD (Computer Aided Design) 

for building and iterating on concepts digitally (most Black Hills teams are not doing this b/c the barrier to entry is too high, making it not a good use of team time on the one season scale)

Version Control for their code

version control systems like Git can be intimidating, leading to most teams versioning "with filenames"

Software Engineering Design Patterns 

most teams are writing imperative "scripts" and would benefit from organizing and reasoning about their code using patterns and principles like SRP (Single Responsibility Principal)

Advanced Building Techniques

There are concepts we saw at Worlds, like a "ratchet", that we have never seen a West River team use

And so many more! BHRF can help make these events possible!

Host a Skills Tournament One Mile Underground

Once we have enough teams, we plan to partner with SURF and run a Skills tournament one mile underground. Students would have to be on the surface (for liability reasons) but we know some VEX-U students at the School of Mines that would be happy to setup the field and bring the robots underground. There we would have a livestream for students to watch, control, and compete with their robot. Our next major challenge would be getting the controller working from a mile away, but we have some smart people, we'll figure it out. I expect this would become a national event as no one else in Vex has ever done anything like this!

Support existing teams

As we build new teams, the next year they need help with funding. 

MS teams lead to HS teams, that need help with funding. 

What started out as one team, becomes two which needs help with funding. 

We want to help offset this funding challenge, likely matching their direct donations (ideally a 100% match)

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We have big goals, but it all comes down to connections and execution - please reach out to Jon Nelson ([email protected]) so we can connect and see how your funds and input can help us nurture our future bright minds!