(upbeat music)

Just like a real quick personal story about Daniel. When we opened the Australia office a few years ago, we were looking for mentors to help our event partners in the competition space. And Daniel, in the middle of the night, sat on the phone for about four hours with our Australian event partners. And I'm pretty sure we had to tell him to go to bed. So thank you, Daniel, for your time and representing VEX.

Thank you, thank you, Nicole. (audience applauding)

Good morning, everyone. My name is Daniel Yu. I am the Founder/Owner of Caution Table Robotics Club. Just to give everyone some background about ourselves. Okay, it's working. All right, our history. So myself, our students call me Master Shifu, okay? They don't call me coach. They don't call me teacher. They call me Shifu because I do have coaches working with me. They're teaching the kids all the technical stuff. But for myself, I always tell them, don't just learn to be smart, learn to be the ones, right? I'm trying to give you all the ideas, sharing them my wisdom in terms of what I have done for the past 20 years in the IT industry.

I'm very fortunate to work with a lot of smart kids out there. And I start getting what the kids are seeing from their eyes and helping them to navigate through this competition, so that's basically my story here. And the topic today is about from our vision to the victory. So the first thing I'm gonna talk about is our vision. When I first started our club, our job was to inspire students' interest in robotics, STEM education, and to help them understand that there's really no limit to what they can do, and eventually foster their inner drive to dream the impossible. Maybe one of them will be winning the world champion. One of them may be launching a rocket 10 years later, sending people to Mars. You never know, right? As educators, you do not want to set limits for your students.

The true story behind last year's world champion win is probably some of you have been to the dome last year. They saw the reveal video of one of my students that did the air shooting mechanism. When they were actually doing that, the coaches, the parents, we all gave up, okay? It was literally like two weeks before the world champion and they were not working, and we told them, "You know what? You still haven't got your enough driving practice yet. Your autonomous wasn't done, okay? You should probably wise to stop right here and let's do more driving practice." But you know what? Kids are being kids, so they don't listen to you. How many times do you tell them to do something and they listen to you? Probably very few, right? So what they did is they kept going, and then it worked.

The trick of that is they had to find the right piece to actually lift up the PVC pipe, just the right amount, not breaking the field, not getting their robot to get stuck under the PVC pipe, and allow those discs to fly under. They prevailed and they won. So that's the story behind it. I learned a lot from the kids. For that, they are my teacher. They are my Shifu right there. Every day, I learn from those kids. They are doing the impossible things, not me.

So still, we're talking about vision to the victory. Some of our victories here since I first started the club, I was literally just talking with our IQ kids. They are actually coming in today. I told them since we started the club, I never miss a dome for the VEX IQ. So don't make it the first time, but no pressure (laughs). So hopefully, they will still do well today, for the next three days. My VRC kids, they are doing well so far. One of the teams, they're 10 now. They're going to align selection very soon. Two of those kids are actually 8390E from last year. So they made it to the dome last year, and now they're in the VRC. So they're doing pretty well in terms of that.

But here's the thing, for many, many teachers I have talked to, I have lots of friends in the education field. My background myself is an engineer. And I'm very lucky enough to be able to work with engineers as well as educators. In my club, I have three full-time staff and maybe 10, 15 part-time coaches, and lots of them are actually full-time teachers as well, working in TDSB or different school districts.

The more I start working with them, I start realizing the difference, the different mindset between the educators and the engineers. It's like the left-hand side, left hand don't talk to right hand. They truly hate each other, and they do. At the very beginning, I was like, "What's going on here, right? How do I bridge down that difference, that gap right there? How do I help them?"

And the more I'm working with them, we start getting more and more educators coming in because you know what? Every single educator here, you guys are the best. I don't really need that many engineers because you know why? It is impossible to teach the engineers to be the teachers, but I can help the teachers, the educators, to have the engineering mindset. It is a much easier job for me to do that way. That's the reality. That's the truth right there because you know what? Because we're not building a rocket, launching them into space. All the teachers, you are working on some STEM, engineering mechanism designed for Grade four, Grade five, Grade six. You are smart. It's very easy to learn them.

The key is in the robotics field, you're working with the kid. You don't necessarily have to teach them. So today, I wanna share some of our secrets, maybe some even practical methods to help every single one of you. When you go back, you say, hey, you know what? I can do that in my classroom. I can start helping my kids better, and then so they can stay, be more competitive. So that's my goal today. And hopefully, let's see what's going on.

[Music Cue]

All right, the first thing, what you really want to do is you want to make sure your robotics is fine. The kids do robotics simply because they love them. I'm where after-school programs, right? For sure, it's now like a school program. And then there are kids being pushed into the program because the parents think, yeah, you probably should learn some robotics. You should learn some STEM and all that. But end of day, the kids who are willing to spend hours of hours into robotics, are they having fun? Make sure of that, right? What you're looking for are the kids who are truly enjoying doing robotics with their own heart. Not because of the teacher think, you should do this, right?

Because even for my own story, my younger one, he's really good at driving the robot. And when he was competing, and he was one of the best drivers, but he never enjoyed it, right? But he only likes to do certain things such as, maybe some coding part of it. That is totally fine, right? Let the kids be the kids. Let them do whatever they feel comfortable, they would love to do. But robotics is not only just for the kids into STEM, not only for the kids into engineering.

True story for myself, my older one, he was probably one of the best that he made to the world championship multiple times. His best record of probably like a semifinal in VRC. And he did two years in mechanical engineering. And suddenly he decided, this year, he told me, "Dad, I don't want to do mechanical engineering anymore." And he wants to go for graphical design. That's totally okay with me. And he had that passion. And the logo I have right here was designed by him five years ago when he was in high school.

And then my younger one, robotics changed his life because when he was in Grade four, he couldn't even do any presentation in school with his home class teacher. And he couldn't even do one-on-one with the home class teacher.

[Music Cue]

Thank you all for being here today and for your dedication to education. I hope you found some inspiration and practical ideas to take back to your classrooms. Let's continue to support and learn from each other as we bridge the gap between education and engineering.

So we had to send in the USB key with his video recording we have done from home. But with many years of doing robotics, all those judging interviews, he was the emcee of our provincial championship. He could do head wrap in the VEX IQ. So that's how robotics changed his life. But he's no longer pursuing robotics anymore either. Last summer, he told me,

"Dad, I want to be a doctor."

Never push by the Chinese parent. We never want him to be that way. And sure, go ahead. For sure, we had some trouble because he has already selected all of his Grade 11 courses. Now, we had to reselect all of them again, but that's okay because he hasn't learned what he needs to learn. All those soft skills are truly important for doing robotics.

So when we are looking at the kids doing robotics, they all start from having the interest. How many kids have you worked with? And then they say,

"Hey, I love building LEGO, right?"

You buy as parents. You buy the LEGO set for your kids. They will be sitting there for hours. And those kids who tend to running around and suddenly becomes, where is this kid? He was there in the corner building his LEGO, that's his interest, but you need to foster that interest into passion because there's a difference between the passion and the interest. The main difference is when you have a passion, you're not afraid to fail. The kid, I just talked about who won the champion, he was not afraid to fail. Probably coaches them, okay?

When I talk to the parents, sometimes I say, "You know what? Club is probably the one who cares about all those banners, trophies." I still can use it, right? I can use them to brag about it. But the reality is, as a kid, they're not afraid to fail. That's when you see this start developing the passion into it. But the kid still being kid. What's the difference between the profession and the passion? Because there is something they would hate to do and to be real successful. Something like putting your parts back to where they belong, especially 90% of the boys and 90% of the team members out there are probably boys. So you're seeing a good chunk of them don't like to organize their parts.

Things like engineering notebook. I had a lot of parents, educators approached me, "Hey Daniel, how do I help them to make their engineering notebook better?" The truth is they have to see the value into it. The difference between profession and the passion is, you have to do things you don't really like. But I know that's what's needed for my team to be successful. I had a kid who's also on that world champion team, the other driver, when he comes to club with his parts, you know what he had? It's like IKEA, those shopping top, with all his parts in it. All he do is dump all the parts on the tables like, oh my goodness, how can you find anything in here, right? But the kids need to gradually start learning them. That's a three level. You're gradually developing them up, right? Once you have that structure in mind, okay, where they are? How can I help them? How can I help them to see the value of the things they don't like to do? How can I help them to develop the passion to bring them up from the interest of being the passion?

All right, so when I work with educators, even my coaches, sometimes I share this wisdom with you, traditional Chinese thought philosophy. Why I'm sharing this? Because for the educators, what you're keeping asking me is, I don't have that engineering background. How do I help the kid? The truth is you don't truly have to because you're only missing one part of this entire formula here. Let's work this all the way up from the bottom. So what's the tools? The tools in Chinese world, we call it the (indistinct). The tools are the physical implementation, which are your VEX IQ parts, your kit, your VEXcode. That's called VR, VEXcode IQ. Those are the things easily provided.

As a parent, sometimes when they think about helping their kids get into STEM, their first reaction is to go out there, head to Walmart or Amazon, and buy some STEM tools for them. Hopefully, this will spark their interest. It's the easiest and cheapest way to start.

Once you have all the tools needed, perhaps funded by DoD STEM, your school board, or even paid for by parents, the next step is crucial. What you're missing is a technique. Many educators lack these techniques. The focus should be on the method, which is key. The RECF has already published it: the engineering design process. It's something that can be easily understood, and I will have a slide for it.

When working on the engineering design process, you'll find it is entirely different from day-to-day education. The last part is understanding the way. Dao is a way, and once you start understanding human nature and how the universe works, you realize everything is interconnected. This is how human beings behave, and we're not teaching kids that. They will start understanding it better.

Why can I work with engineers and teachers simultaneously? Because I understand them from their perspectives. When discussing with educators and engineers, the difference lies in the approach. Education focuses on holistic understanding, conceptual emphasis, diverse methods, adaptability, and learning outcomes. For engineers, it's about the outcome. The team needs to compete and perform well to have good experiences.

The problem arises for Grade four or five math and science teachers. Teaching kids often involves black-and-white thinking, with a correct answer for every formula. When kids give the wrong answer, teachers show them the right way. This mindset leads kids to constantly seek the right answer. Engineers, however, don't think that way. They ask, "Is this the right robot for you?" and understand there's no single right answer. It's about what works for them, which may not work for another team.

In the engineering design process, there's no right answer. If you keep looking for it, you'll never find it. So, how do I help kids find the proper answer? Through iterative design. Thomas Edison, one of the best innovators, said, "I haven't failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work." You see this every day in classrooms with kids doing robotics. They learn by trying and failing.

Let them fail. Failure is part of the engineering process. Let them fail early, often, and forward. The reality and truth lie in the club. In our club, we start scrimmages at the end of August. You might start your school in September, and that's okay. Let them build whatever they want and run a small scrimmage with two teams.

Thank you for your attention and dedication to fostering a love for STEM in the next generation. Your efforts are invaluable, and together, we can inspire young minds to explore and innovate.

Best wishes for your journey in STEM education!

If you don't have two teams, hey, I only got one team, but do you have two students? If I don't have two robots, why don't I run the skills that really work for them? 'Cause when you set up scrimmage, when you go tell them, let's bring them to the competition, you know what? They will fail. And then when they fail, they start saying, yeah, that doesn't work. I've seen a better one. How can I make it better?

I went to New Brunswick to help them to truly launch their VEX programs. They just started last year. And this year, I went there. There is a brand new team with two kids there, and they started building the robot probably in January, and their first competition is like early February. So they spent only a month building them. All they got for me is a drive chain. And when they have the drive chain, when the teacher told them, "Hey, why don't you make like a claw, add something there," the typical reaction you got from the boys is, "It's okay, right? It's okay, it's fine." That's okay, so let them do it.

But when they are at a competition, all they can do is they can go into the supply zone and they can do the food park, and they max out whatever they can do 'cause that's the only thing they can do. They can probably knock down three rides and go to the food park. Then they start asking me, "Hey Daniel, how can I get better 'cause I'm what, that last, right?" 'Cause they failed, right? But they start realizing, "I need to do better." At that moment, you know you got to them.

Next time, I went there for their regional championship. They start getting a little bit better. They will start to keep trying. They may not be competitive, but they're moving forward. That's what you care about.

So, engineering design process, five steps. I did not even make this up. I used to have a nice steps one, but I try to follow what the RECF has published to make everybody's life a little bit easier. Oh, this is the same thing, exactly word by word from the engineering notebook rubrics. And I had a phone call with one of the school teachers and she was asking me, "Daniel, how can you help my kids do a better engineering notebook?" I told her, the engineering notebook is not your target here. It is a by-product, why? Use the engineering notebook as your method of teaching the kids.

Identify the problem, brainstorm, diagram, or prototype the solutions, and select the best solution in the plan, and build and program the solution, and finally, test the solution. You know where the problem is from like probably 90% of the rookie teams? Their problem is not here, build and program the solution. Their problem is actually on the first one, identify the problem. The kids are not smart. Not smart enough to see what the real problem is. The kids are saying, "Oh, this one got stuck."

Sometimes when I'm in the club, they will ask me, "Hey Daniel, how can you help me with this?" My first question is always, what are you trying to do here? Is your real problem, is your intake getting stuck, or you're trying to make it faster, or you're trying to do this, right? That's a real problem here. You wanna help them think out of the box. You're so laser-focused on that particular thing. And then quite often you forgot the big picture. The big picture is I probably just need intake or I just probably just need to dump the cubes into the goal. Do I have an alternative? Let's go back to the drawing board. Can we do another run of the brainstorm?

The kids are seeing something right there, and then immediately jump onto the problem, and that's not the right approach. And we keep telling them, slow down, slow and steady. And quite often that's faster, but that's a lesson. They will keep learning. That's the thing, follow the engineering design process. That's your golden bible right there. And help them brainstorm. That's what I'm saying, work with them.

Thank you for your attention and dedication to helping these students grow and learn. Your efforts are truly making a difference. Keep up the great work!

Don't just teach them because the process will help them to develop the right solution. I had the kid, the kid who won the champion that year. When he first started, he was asking me, "Hey Daniel, which drive change should I choose?" I said, "What are you trying to do?" And he told me, "Whatever approach." I said, "Okay, let's compare them. What do you think about this one?" And he said, "Okay, what's the pros and cons of that?" Navigate them, help them. And then at the end, I asked him, "Do you still need me?" He said, "No, I'm good." That's it, did I give him the answer? Not at all. He made the decision by himself. He doesn't need me. He only needs me to be there with him to go through the path. Once he went through that path once, next time, he can do it himself. He doesn't need me anymore.

So sequential design cycle, this is something more engineering now. I'm trying to keep my presentation a little bit shorter. So when a lot of students or teachers, when you are working with the kids on developing a robot, this is what you typically see, right? Your first version, your winter rebuild, your state/provs/regional championship, and then this is the last one, your VEX awards version. But quite often the kids will finish one. You know what, I want a better robot, so I'm gonna design the second one right after the first competition. I see something wrong. I wanna build a better robot. And then they build a third one. But reality is your performance could be picked at here. And when you start building the version one, your performance immediately drops onto here. And then you may have a competition coming up.

When Apple designed their iPhone, their iPhone 15, 16 is designed right after iPhone 15 is released. It doesn't work that way. Engineers don't work that way. How do I work this? Staggered design cycle. You wanna start your cycle faster. You wanna overlap them. You wanna maximize your version one while the other team starts working on your version two. Maybe a different student, maybe you have a subteam. Depends on how big your team is. Depends on your VRC or VEX IQ. That's how engineers operate. You don't want to do them in a sequential way. You want the kids to start working on a worst robot whether they make it or not before state provincials. That's the way to work on those design cycles.

And the last one I want to talk about is the five pillars of success. When we are working with the kids on the robot, how many times have you heard the kids are saying, "My robot is not working. I need a better one." Right, and they're only focusing on the entire five pillars for one segment here, which is building. Lots of our coaches are F1 racing car fans, right? So we're F1 fans, and one of the analogies I like to give is, if you give me an F1 racing car from Red Bull, Mercedes, Mercedes is not performing this year, but whatever, doesn't matter. I probably won't even be able to start the car. There are like 30, 40 buttons on the wheel. I don't know which one to press. But if you give Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton a Corolla, can he perform? Not at all, right? Because you need this entire five pillars to be working together, and your performance reflects the shortest one of this entire pillar here. And each one of them is equally important. You need to have a robot. You also need to code it properly, including your driver control code. Have you thought about, are we doing just a driver control code and everything is manual control, or can we make it a little bit smarter? I can press one button. I can dump it. I can press the same button again. It will retract by itself. Is my driving skills there? Is my strategizing really the best way? I should be going out there and compete. Am I communicating properly?

I tell you the true story. If in a 0W, one of our best elementary school teams, when they competed, they have three kids, right? One of them is one of the best builders.

Thank you for your attention and for being part of this journey. Your dedication and passion make all the difference. Keep pushing the boundaries and inspiring the next generation of innovators.

They published a lot of building videos on our YouTube channel, and the other one is coders. He also publishes a coding autonomous strategy on YouTube as well. You think that's the best team? Okay, you have one of the best coders. You have one of the best builders, and then we have a third member on the team. That kid is not technical at all. And those two boys who are the builder and coder, they think, "I don't need him. What's he doing on this team? We all can drive. Why do I need him?"

Until one day, they go to a competition. For the first morning, the third kid was not on the team. By lunchtime, those two kids, they don't talk to each other anymore. Their problem, their answer at that point is, why don't you listen to me? Because for all the technical people, for all the engineers out there, you are being trained for problem-solving. And in their mind, you are my problem. I'm trying to solve you because that's not the right way because communication is not one way straight. It's two-way. Until the third kid comes in, he brings the team back together and they can be competitive.

Those are the kids who are coming in today. And if you stay long enough, go with it. It's in a 0W. You will see the kids who've done it all the time. You can immediately tell who's that kid, right? So make sure you cover all the five pillars, not just one, not just two. You need all five to be working together. And the bottom of it is your engineering design process. Use that as your tool, and then they will find their success.

So I'm a little bit over, so I'm gonna quickly go through this. Make sure you're focused on the education. Make sure you're comparing your team achievement vertically, meaning how do they do today compared to a month ago, a year ago? Establish proper objectives for each student. What they should be learning at each competition, not the performance, but what should they be focusing on. Success is perceived uniquely by each student. And the failure is universally defined by the students not having fun doing that. It goes back to the first thing I was talking about, and the kid enjoys robotics.

Last thing, they call me Master Shifu for a reason, so I tell them, "Anything is possible when you have inner peace." As a coach, as a parent, as a teacher, as an educator, when your kids are not performing, it is okay because they are getting better every day. You need that inner peace to truly see what's really going on in this robotics world. You will be able to see they are failing forward. That's what your focus should be. When you have that inner peace, you don't go out there thinking, "Why can't they make it to the state? Why can't they make it to the world? How can I compete with all those other kids who may be powered by larger organizations?" It doesn't matter. Focus on their growth. That's what they need. That's what you can help them.

So any questions you may have for me? On the far left side, that's my contact info. You can scan it, you can email me, it has all my email, phone number on it, or you can follow us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. We're mostly active on YouTube. Our students are publishing lots of VEX IQ education videos, all done by the kids. And they're hoping to help more students like them to be better. Whenever they have free time, they will try to make more videos and to help more kids. So after all, VEX Robotics is a student-centered program. Students should be helping students.

Thank you.

(audience applauding)

(upbeat music)