Hal Hockersmith: Recruiting the Next Generation of Robotics at Reinke Manufacturing
A
s automation, satellites, and application-based technology take on a larger and larger role in irrigation, Reinke Manufacturing has seen the need to invest in the future of its workforce by exposing young people to robotics and programming. The FIRST Tech Challenge, a competitive robotics challenge for high schoolers, is one way of accomplishing this goal, and Reinke has been sponsoring local teams with both material and financial support. In this interview, Hal Hockersmith, one of Reinke’s computer engineers, tells Irrigation Leader how Reinke’s support of the FIRST Tech Challenge is helping students become engaged in robotics, and how this enthusiasm could help the company and community in the future. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current role. Hal Hockersmith: I stumbled across Reinke Manufacturing through a career fair at Kansas State University, from which I graduated. I got to talking with one of the engineers who was recruiting and was intrigued by the company’s products. I was awarded the opportunity to come and interview, was given an internship, and after it, was offered a full-time position. I’ve been at Reinke for about 10 years now. Today, I work as a computer engineer, which means I work on a lot of different things, from hardware to software on remote systems. Currently, I’m the primary maintainer of our ReinCloud remote telemetry operations, which is our system that allows customers to control their pivots through cell and satellite units in the field. Irrigation Leader: Are these control systems basically optional add-ons for center pivots, or do most of Reinke’s mechanical systems incorporate computer controllers at this point?
Irrigation Leader: What is the FIRST Tech Challenge, and why did Reinke decide to get involved with it? Hal Hockersmith: The FIRST Tech Challenge is a robotics building and presentation competition in which 7th- through
18 | IRRIGATION LEADER | July/August 2021
12th-grade students across the entire nation are challenged with a common task. They have to solve a problem and show how they did so. The yearly challenge often involves some sort of object manipulation and various aspects of mechanical controls programming. The tricky thing about the FIRST Tech Challenge is that there is a portion of the match that is entirely autonomous: The kids have to program the robot to be able to act without any sort of input. That’s a huge challenge because it requires the students to program the robot to handle inputs from selected sensors and to complete tasks without any human interaction. During the second portion of the match, the students are allowed to directly control the robot. Normally, one person maneuvers the robot and another person actually manipulates the elements in the field, so to score points, they must work together. The really interesting thing about FIRST is that it is almost always done in a cooperative manner: You have a partner team that is competing with you against two teams that are competing against you. The students learn good partnering skills and how to complement each team’s abilities. The other two important portions of FIRST are the presentation of what the team did and outreach. Participants have to go before a bunch of judges and explain how they came up with their method of solving the problem. Participants also need to be involved in outreach and the promotion of the FIRST organization and its ideals. The kids interact with the community through fundraising and encourage new students to irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ELECTROGATOR ROBOTICS.
Hal Hockersmith: Most of our systems these days have some sort of computer control. Our Advanced Plus and our touchscreens are probably our two most popular control panels, and both incorporate some aspect of computing. We still sell a number of basic electromechanical panels as well, but I think we’re starting to see a lot more dealers accepting the computerization. The remote telemetry option is now built into those natively, so with a simple equipment add-on, you can connect to our server and quickly start to use our services.
Coach Hal Hockersmith (right) shows teammates Jordan (back), Landon (middle), and Jocelyn (front, with back to camera) how to attach a new servo to capture one of the 2020 season game elements.
