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Why have a RoboSail program?
- There are benefits for everyone in your sailing community: The kids, the adults, and the sailing center
- This is an excellent opportunity for kids to work with adult volunteers and combine their working sailing knowledge with new engineering skills in a challenging, relevant, fun, hands-on project. We expect it will appeal to kids, especially girls, who may not already be exposed to engineering projects, but are involved in sailing and outdoors/natural-world activities.
- RoboSail provides opportunities for your sailing center to partner with local businesses, hi-tech industry, schools and colleges. There is room for mentors and teachers, program coordinators, fundraisers, as well as techie-types to maintain the boats,
Flyer and Recruitment materials for students and mentors
(click image to view larger/download pdf)
(click image to view larger/download pdf)
CBI RoboSail Flyer
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Student Application
Recruitment blurbs
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Regatta Rules and Scorecard/Certificate (to be printed on certificate paper) (click image to view larger/download pdf)
CBI RoboSail Regatta rules
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ScoreCard/Certificate
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Facilities and Space
You will need:
You will need:
- dock access
- a classroom with outlets
- a projector for computer
- a place to store the boats and a few bins with materials, tools, batteries, etc.
- Internet access /reliable wifi
- Individual and/or team computers
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Staff and Schedule
Staffing needs
In addition to the program director you will need teaching staff and boat prep staff. Teaching staff should be about 1 teacher/coach per 5 students. Boat prep staff can be 1 person. Teaching staff could learn boats by being the boat prep staff.
Boat prep staff responsibilities
Staff training
As with any program, staff training is key and classes will run smoother when the instructors are well prepared. Instructors should come in with solid programming skills, and plan to get familiar with the Arduino environment/C quickly. The lesson plan is a good place to start, though skilled instructors may want to come up with their own exercises and challenges.
Course schedule
There are many options for scheduling the course ranging from weekly sessions 2-3 hours classes to full-days for a full week or two. Plan on at least 15 contact hours (we did 6 3-hour classes in our pilot) with the possibility to expand to 60 hours with harder challenges.
This is a good option for off-season programming since much of the work is indoors and the kids will not be going in the water.
The course can coordinate with local high school curriculum for students, or with college schedule for teachers.
Staffing needs
In addition to the program director you will need teaching staff and boat prep staff. Teaching staff should be about 1 teacher/coach per 5 students. Boat prep staff can be 1 person. Teaching staff could learn boats by being the boat prep staff.
Boat prep staff responsibilities
- Assemble boats and electronics, install sensors, create wire harnesses
- Maintain boats, tools, space
- Understand the individual components of the system and have a sense of how they all function together in the overall
- Regular debriefs/communications with program
- Set up computers with Arduino IDE and
- Set up student groups, class norms, and facilitate team
- Teach/coach
- Program code file management
- Manage communication with students
- Share improvements to curriculum, code, hardware, etc.
Staff training
As with any program, staff training is key and classes will run smoother when the instructors are well prepared. Instructors should come in with solid programming skills, and plan to get familiar with the Arduino environment/C quickly. The lesson plan is a good place to start, though skilled instructors may want to come up with their own exercises and challenges.
Course schedule
There are many options for scheduling the course ranging from weekly sessions 2-3 hours classes to full-days for a full week or two. Plan on at least 15 contact hours (we did 6 3-hour classes in our pilot) with the possibility to expand to 60 hours with harder challenges.
This is a good option for off-season programming since much of the work is indoors and the kids will not be going in the water.
The course can coordinate with local high school curriculum for students, or with college schedule for teachers.
Budget, Grants, and Fundraising
Budget Estimate for a program serving 20 students with 5 boats
$3000 for 5 instrumented Sailboats and electronics includes:
· $350 RC model boat such as ProBoat Ragazza
· $250 on-board electronics: computers (Arduino), sensors (GPS, Compass, wind direction encoder), interconnect wiring, batteries
$2500 for 5 laptop computers (1 for each boat station)
$500 misc costs for materials, tools, batteries, certificates, etc.
Total: $6000
Budget Estimate for a program serving 20 students with 5 boats
$3000 for 5 instrumented Sailboats and electronics includes:
· $350 RC model boat such as ProBoat Ragazza
· $250 on-board electronics: computers (Arduino), sensors (GPS, Compass, wind direction encoder), interconnect wiring, batteries
$2500 for 5 laptop computers (1 for each boat station)
$500 misc costs for materials, tools, batteries, certificates, etc.
Total: $6000
Sample fundraising letters and grant proposal