Silence has been the trademark of libraries for centuries, but imagine stepping out of the elevator into the lobby of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library and — whoosh! — you step right into what appears to be a miniaturized version of tune-up day at a NASCAR track, complete with a cheering pit crew rushing behind the car and driver.
Welcome to the brave new world of the Memphis Mech Warriors, a community-based robotics skills team sponsored by the Cloud901 Center at the library.
Now in its fifth year, the after-hours program is seeking 30 new team members for the 2018-2019 school year.
Mech Warriors coach Marion Anderson says the process is open to any striving students.
“First, they have to be willing to work hard,” Anderson says. “Second, they have to maintain a minimum B average, and most importantly, they must have respect for themselves and their parents. If you’re the type of child that doesn’t listen to your parents, you’re not going to listen to me.”
The stringent adherence to old-school values derives from Anderson’s upbringing in Inverness, Mississippi, where her mother taught school for 47 years. Mom’s example led to a major in engineering at the University of Memphis, where she credits mentoring as her push into robotics, which she taught at East High School.
Shelby County Schools once had four robotics courses, but the program was downgraded, much to her regret.
“But then I was contacted by the library to create a community-based program, which is my dream,” she says. “We need to expose more kids to STEM, so they can function in this advanced world of technology. They must understand and be prepared for global competition. That is what Mech Warriors is focused upon.”
Meeting the kids conducting the surprise test drive is certainly fascinating.
Central High School student Greydon Morris is a perfect example of what they’re striving for. “I met Miss Anderson at a summer camp my mother forced me to go to. I really didn’t like it, but I liked Miss Anderson,” Morris says. “It felt like another opportunity to get in trouble, but when I found out that she had a class at the school I was to go to I got interested. I saw her the first day of school and that was all she wrote.”
He stayed. “I’m kinda like the electrical lead, so all the wiring was done by me. That’s my specialty,” says Morris. “Electrical engineering is my thing.”
“We had six weeks to build the robot for the first robotics competition,” White Station’s Olivia Edgington, who serves as a co-captain, explains as she monitors the test drive. “It’s really fast!” Her mother Maryann Edgington serves as lead mentor to the team.
The robot is also quite nimble. Driver for the day Jonathan Kagoo, a student at St. George’s Independent School, has the contraption doing everything but the moves to “Thriller.” Miles Thomas, fellow programmer and student at Hollis F. Price Middle College High School, monitors every command with a laptop.
“I wrote the steering command,” says Kagoo. “We work in Java code, in commands and subsystems, and then pair them with different commands with the controller, which connects to the Wi-Fi point to allow the computer to communicate with the robot.”
“I do a little bit of everything except coding,” Thomas adds quietly through the interruption of his laser focus on his task. “I’m not that good at driving, so I’m monitoring today.”
It’s considered off season now for the Mech Warriors, and those interested in joining the team can drop by the library. Build season is from January to April, and who knows what they’re planning this year.
“The team works in subgroups: mechanical, programming, electronics, marketing,” coach Anderson explains. “Everyone works on a different concentration and then I steer them to their best strengths.”
Initial skeptic Morris makes the best recommendation of the program in one of the YouTube videos they’ve made: “I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be.”
Writer and publicist Tony Jones has been featured in Memphis magazine, Memphis Flyer, Tri-State Defender, and other publications.