Watch for the award-winning Duluth East Daredevils Robotics Team that’s showing up this summer at festivals and games. Recently, at Two Harbors Heritage Days, the team demonstrated a series of robots they’ve developed over the past few years. 2011-2012 Allie-Hoop won them a trip to St. Louis World Championships.

I not only was shown the innards of this winning beauty, I was put at the hoop-shooting controls, and playing way better than I do on court, scored 6 out of 6 swishers. Team Captain, East High School senior Kirsi Kuutti, and Media and Social Media Liaison, sophomore Jacqui La Liberte, joined Coach and Lincoln Park Middle School science teacher, Tim Velner, in sharing East’s charming and intricate robots with the public.

Allie Hoop was great at picking up basketballs and shooting them accurately through a hoop. To maneuver effectively, she was designed with six wheels. By lifting some and driving on others, the robot could make quick changes in every direction.

I was surprised at the team’s sophisticated division of labor. Students try out for a number of crucial departments: programming, mechanical build, electrical build, strategy (aka legal dept.), digital design, accounting, journalism, marketing. In October, candidates are interviewed; in November, the team is hired; and in January, the NASA affiliated FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition issues the year’s challenge, allowing only six weeks to create a  working, competitive robot.

The teams put the pieces of the organizational plan in place, and on top of that are randomly assigned 3 other teams to coordinate and cooperate with. Such a learning adventure!

In Two Harbors, students showed off robots from previous years; it was satisfying to see innovations created over time. At the beginning of the school year, ‘sabotaging’ these older robots gives freshmen an opportunity to get their feet wet.

The budget for the team is over $50,000, much of which the kids come up with. They’re currently selling LED lights as a fundraiser. If it’s been too hot for you to catch the East Daredevils during Duluth Sidewalk Days, don’t miss the August 1 Huskies Game. They’ll be there with their T-Shirt cannon, lobbing student-designed shirts. Check them out at www.daredevils2512.org or call 590-0014 for more information.

Complaints

Last week Paul Whyte wrote in the Reader: “Charges Dismissed Against Occupy Duluth Member for May Day Incident”. I was all dressed to attend that plaza May Day celebration, but cold and rain kept me home. The Thursday after, I heard WPR “People of Color” moderator, Henry Banks, interviewing several people from the May Day event. The Duluth Police Department had been invited to the on-air broadcast, but did not show up.

Witnesses believe the police erred in sending multiple squad cars to a peaceful public gathering. It is important for citizens to protest when rights such as those of free speech and assembly are trampled. Tim, at the Duluth Police Department Customer Service Desk (730-5400), told me there are two ways to register a complaint: 1) visit the police department and ask for a complaint form from the front desk or 2) go to the Duluth MN Police Dept. website and click on ‘compliment or complaint’ in the left hand column. Several options are presented.

Lyle Lovett Was Here

Last week I saw Lyle Lovett for the third time at the DECC. Listening to him made me realize I have more family in Texas than anywhere- twenty family members in all, if you count my sister who’s married to a man from Amarillo. Lovett’s lyrics, “That’s right you’re not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway”, brought tears as I thought of the old, the babies, the dead, the brewers of Osbakken Dunkelweiss.

If anyone’s a Texas ambassador, it’s got to be Lovett. He’s from East Texas, where my sister-in-law was adopted at age six from an orphanage in Germany by a KKK family. It seems he’s escaped that awful, old East Texas core, as Evie did.

Lovett has fun onstage and fun with his audience. He invited a woman holding a sign to come up, insisting she must have been a cheerleader because the sign was written in cheerleader graphics: “You folks are the show,” he told us.

Lovett is not a solo performer. He surrounds himself with virtuosos like cellist John Hagen, an act in and of himself. The things Hagen does with his instrument just make you happy. The group’s violinist and electric bass player were superb, and great singers. Lovett featured original songs by these young men.

I would see this Texan again, if just to hear him sing this vision: “If I had a boat, I’d go out in the ocean. And if I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat. And we could all together go out on the ocean. I said me upon my pony on my boat.”