4. Some Honest Thoughts
Robot Arms
Our school is really lucky to own two robot arms this expensive. We should thank former library director Fang-Jin Shih for that. During our first competition, in the preliminaries, there were too many teams, so we had to share one arm with another team. In the 20-minute practice period, our team only got 10 minutes. Thanks to familiarity, we finished very quickly and even had a little time left. But the other team clearly felt less practiced, almost like they had just learned the basics. I guess their school did not have a robot arm and they were learning and competing on the spot. That was the first time we felt how valuable it is to have robot arms. So when you are at school, treasure them. I do not need to say all the usual "use them carefully" lines. The main point is: do not let the arms sit idle for too long. What a waste.
Passing It On
Later, I found that our school's robot arms seemed to be used only when teaching first-year students and before competitions. The rest of the time, they were basically idle. Might as well list them on a secondhand platform. That is really a pity. But I do not want an even bigger pity to happen: no student knowing how to operate the arms. The original purpose of making this textbook was to help YMSH students continue the tradition of joining robot arm competitions. I hope that future YMSH students who perform well in competitions can teach the next generation, passing down the robot arm culture. For this part, we should thank Teacher Chia-Ching Hsu, the only engineering design teacher in the school who has received TM Robot training, for cooperating with us high school students and for caring about the robot arms.
Keep Going!
I transferred into the YMSH AI class in the second semester of first year. I missed all the robot arm courses from the first semester. But because I worked hard in class in the second semester and was interested, we were recommended to compete and eventually achieved pretty good results. What I want to say is: if you want to learn, there is actually plenty of time and there are many ways. The things needed for preliminaries are really not hard. The key is practice. If you are willing to spend time, you will definitely gain something. Finally, to all students interested in the robot arm and preparing for competition: good luck!