History
The National Robotics Challenge has evolved from one of the oldest robotics contests in America, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Robotic Technology and Engineering Challenge. The SME-RTEC competition was started in 1986, under the guidance and inspiration of Tom Meravi, Associate Professor from Northern Michigan University and the late Dr. James Hannemann, co-chairman of the event. Working behind the scenes, Professor Meravi and Dr. Hannemann volunteered their time and talents tirelessly for fifteen years to help the robotics competition grow, expand, and develop into one of the premier robotics and engineering events in the nation. From its humble beginning, with two work cells and two pick and place competitions, the 2002 competition offered a total of seventeen contests. Dr. Hannemann died suddenly in July 2001. Following his passing, SME announced that the organization was unable to continue its sponsorship of the event at the 2003 awards ceremony in Rochester, New York. Most of the competitors and advisors thought that this was the end, but as with all things, every end can be a new beginning. This new beginning was realized by three educators from Marion, Ohio. On the bus ride from Rochester to Marion, Ed Goodwin, Ritch Ramey, and Tad Douce discussed the possibilities and support that existed in their community for this type of event. When they arrived in Marion each started working on different aspects of a plan to keep the SME contest alive.
Read more about this topic: National Robotics Challenge
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)