Can they vacuum your carpet? Check. Can they check out your grocery items? Check. Can they collect your toll fees? Check.
Robots: They’re everywhere, threatening to overtake our lives with their calm efficiency, swallowing up thousands of manual jobs. They seem so simple yet so complicated, smoothly doing what they are preprogrammed to do.
Robots are fascinating, yet we often do not see what goes on behind the scenes: the tedious job of building and programming these metallic “creatures.” Six girls in Bais Yaakov high school, supervised by Mrs. Ora Attar and Mrs. Sarena Schwartz, set out to do just that: build and program their own robot. Practically from scratch.
When the Bais Yaakov staff received an invitation from CIJE (Center of Initiatives in Jewish Education) to join several other elite schools in a robotics competition, they were ecstatic. CIJE’s mission is to implement a technology curriculum in Jewish schools, and the robotics competition is a new initiative modeled after professional Vex Robotics Competitions. This was an unprecedented event. Most previous robotics competitions took place on Shabbos, and frum schools were unable to attend. With a new, rapidly-expanding STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) program and a strong computer science curriculum, Bais Yaakov accepted this opportunity and quickly formed its robotics team.
Girls in tenth through twelfth grade who participated in either the computer programming or STEM classes were invited to enter a raffle, from which three programming girls and three STEM girls were chosen. CIJE provided the team with all necessary materials; the girls’ job was to use the supplies to build a robot that could drive, pick up balls, and shoot them into a basket. The team began the project way back in November, working on their project during lunch and every Sunday. As weeks turned to months, the girls worked feverishly, building, fixing, and rebuilding their robot, staying hours after school, on Sundays, and even on Friday to complete their project.
May 29 finally dawned, a warm Wednesday filled with promise and opportunity, and Bais Yaakov’s robotics team traveled to Paramus, New Jersey to showcase their robot. Did the girls expect to win? “No!” says Avigayil Schuchman, twelfth-grade member of the team. Batsheva Rosskamm, a tenth-grade member, agrees wholeheartedly, “We went in knowing we would lose.” Avigayil explains that when they arrived at The Frisch School, where the competition was held, their robot was just “bumbling around.” The team was astonished to discover that the floor on which the robots would compete was not made of the material that they had practiced on. Their robot drove, but just barely. The goal of the competition was to pick up tennis balls that were rolling around the arena and carry them to the team’s designated square. Points were awarded for each ball within the team’s square at the end of each round, and additional points were given if the robot succeeded in shooting balls into a basket.
With randomly assigned alliances – each team was comprised of two robots – the qualifying rounds began. Bais Yaakov’s robot, dubbed Alex, struggled to compete and strategize. As the rounds continued, the girls learned from their mistakes as the robot got stuck, succeeded, and then got stuck again. They learned how to strategize and began to improve. Suddenly, “We began to see our scores rising on the score board!”
Soon, Bais Yaakov reached the semi-finals and then even the final round. As the timer buzzed, Bais Yaakov looked at the score board and smiled. “We couldn’t believe it!” says Avigayil. “We won first place.”
Why did Bais Yaakov’s team members – Miriam Albert, Shira Ely, Maya Herman, Devorah Preiser, Batsheva Rosskamm, and Avigayil Schuchman – choose to join the team, knowing the number of intense hours they would need to devote to the project?
“I wanted to get experience,” says Avigayil. “I thought it would be great for my future career in programming or engineering.”
“It sounded so cool!” says Shira Ely. “I had no idea what it was, so I said, ‘I may as well see what it is!’”
Did the girls regret their decision? “Definitely not!” stresses Avigayil. “We felt so accomplished. It was a great experience to be part of something like this.” Batsheva agrees and says she would definitely do it again if she had the opportunity. Did the girls have any experience with robotics before the competition? Mrs. Schwartz, a computer programmer and STEM and computer programming teacher, says that none of them were familiar with robotics when they began. “We had all these parts, and we didn’t know where to begin!” she exclaims.
“Just getting started was the hardest part,” agrees Mrs. Attar. So they experimented. They worked for hours on a failed Plan A, and then dived into Plan B, Plan C, and Plan D with the same exuberant energy. And they worked together – a team of six girls and two teachers – listening respectfully to each other’s ideas, helping each other out.
“That’s the reason we won,” says Batsheva. Mrs. Schwartz agrees and proudly explains that Bais Yaakov was the only school that communicated with the girl controlling the robot during the competition, and they even collaborated with their alliance.
Avigayil and Batsheva credit the team’s win to generosity and chesed. “Always remember that Hashem is helping out,” says Batsheva. “We kept lending our battery to another team, whose battery was broken, even though ours needed to be charged. It goes to show — we did a chesed, and Hashem helped us out.”
The victory definitely took the team by surprise, an exciting end to a rewarding process. “The look on the students’ faces was incredible!” says Mrs. Attar.
So how did the girls celebrate their accomplishment? “As soon as they finished,” says Mrs. Schwartz, “the girls wanted to know where they could daven Mincha.” Yes, she proudly asserts, the Bais Yaakov robotics team definitely “demonstrated that girls can be very frum, very smart, and very successful.” Their stunning victory was twofold: first-place robot and first-place kiddush Hashem
