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Robotics

I’m having fun, Dave

Combine the best in engineering with the best in good old fun. What does that leave you with? Robots, of course! Robots are the ideal introduction to the challenges and many delights of engineering, all the while bringing across this scientific discipline’s value for society.

For this reason, we at Dynamic Network Services Incorporated have always had a keen interest in robotics competitions. We work closely with national institutions and regional schools to introduce young minds to the field, set up events, and support teams engaged in existing contests.

We’re all students at heart, and taking part in such contests helps us keep our analytical skills sharp, our minds open, and our eyes ditto. These activities also tie into our longer-term philanthropic ventures, that are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and engineers build constructive, successful careers.

FIRST Robotics

FIRST Robotics is the ultimate varsity sport for the mind. The competition is geared towards high-school students, and attracts participants from all over the world. It aims to demonstrate, in a hands-on way, the many rewards of the researcher’s life as well as the importance of team work in the success of complex operations. The goal is for each team to design and build a robot capable of performing complex actions, as defined in a requirements specification compiled by a committee of engineers.

The building of each robot requires both social and technical skills. Every year, we work closely with Manchester High School West’s team, the Powerknights. We help its members plan, design, and build their robot. Of course, we provide plenty of moral support, too, when the going gets rougher. The team was founded in 1992, along with the FIRST competition itself, and has won a great many awards, regional, and national, ever since. It is now a force to be reckoned with, and has earned a name of its own in the media.

Lego at Parkside

Loving robots does not mean placing a soldering iron into every child’s hands. Since younger hands were eager to get on board with our robotics program, we set up, and run a Lego Robotics Team at the Manchester Parkside Middle School — students of which often go on to attend Manchester High School West. This allows interested students to get in touch with many of the aspects of engineering competitions, minus some of the heavy hardware building.

Lego Robotics can be surprisingly complex — trust us, we’re engineers! —, and we had great fun in setting up this new venture. This allowed us to further our relationship with the FIRST competition, and widen its scope, but also to extend our community outreach program, and give back to the very environment many of us grew up in, dreaming, of course, of robots…