Hal Hockersmith: Recruiting the Next Generation of Robotics at Reinke Manufacturing

Hal Hockersmith: Recruiting the Next Generation of Robotics at Reinke Manufacturing

As 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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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 join the organization. Media engagement through social media and public speaking is important.

Irrigation Leader: Would you give an example of one of the challenges that the participants have to accomplish with their robots?

Hal Hockersmith: It changes every year, but this year’s program required the robots to pick a number of foam rings off the ground and then feed them into various goals using some sort of launching mechanism, almost like a pitching machine. The kids were tasked with figuring out a way of picking up those rings and getting them into the goal, while also manipulating a couple of other game elements. At the start of the match, the scoring elements were not in a scoring position, so we had to move them to a score-ready position during the autonomous portion. During the driver-control portion, we had to take the rings and put them into the areas where we could score major points. Last year was different from most years, since most groups were remote, and instead of competing with others, they were essentially competing against themselves.

Irrigation Leader: When did Reinke get involved with the program, and what is the nature of its involvement?

Hal Hockersmith: Reinke Manufacturing got involved about 4 years ago. One of Russ Reinke’s cousins’ sons, Luke Reinke, had competed for a number of years and was approaching his senior year. A bunch of the kids on his team had graduated and decided not to continue, but he still desired to, and he mentioned to Russ that Reinke should get involved. A number of people at Reinke have assisted in the program. The students have also had access to a lot of the technology here, including our milling operations, parts fabrication division, and 3D printers, to make custom pieces of the robot. Reinke has sponsored the program by giving us a bunch of people, metal, and financial assistance. It has given us a generous budget to make sure that we have all the purchasable components we need and that we can go to compete at distant events.

Irrigation Leader: Do the students assemble the robots?

Hal Hockersmith: FIRST is a student-oriented organization, so it fully expects the students to do all the design, building, and programming themselves. The adults work as mentors and coaches. If the students have questions, they come to us, and we can give them ideas, show them where they can improve things, encourage them to keep working, and help them work through the problems they run into.

Irrigation Leader: What is your role with the team?

Hal Hockersmith: I started out as the programming mentor, helping the kids learn programming. Now, I have become the head coach as well.

Irrigation Leader: Have any of the participants from your team gone into computer engineering, and have any of them ended up working for Reinke?

Hal Hockersmith: We started out with really young team members, so only a few have graduated so far. Luke Reinke, the student genesis of the team, graduated, and I think he is now studying some sort of mechanical technology. We’ve had some students intern with the company during the summer, mostly in fabrication. I do know that one of the kids who has done a lot of programming on the team has intentions to go to college after graduation to study computer programming or computer science. A number of the younger kids have expressed interest in potentially pursuing robotics as a career.

The program helps students understand that robotics is becoming more important. Our pivots are going to be a lot more sensor driven and computer driven. By sponsoring our robotics team, Reinke is getting young kids involved early and thinking of local opportunities. They may realize that they don’t need to go off to Silicon Valley or another remote location—there are opportunities here at home with a company that has already sponsored them. They might come back to help us take on next-generation designs with new ideas and new technologies.

Hal Hockersmith is a computer engineer at Reinke Manufacturing. He can be reached at halhockersmith@reinke.com.