UA students build robot for competition
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – March 8
University of Alabama engineering students will compete in the IEEE SoutheastCon Hardware competition March 17-20 in Nashville, Tenn. This competition, inspired by the 2010 Haiti earthquake, features a course modeled after a collapsed building. Each team must build an autonomous robot, meaning it operates on its own without a driver, to navigate four rooms of the course. The robot must identify victims and announce their condition and location in a spoken form.
TCD brings UA, Alabama Ballet for performance
Tuscaloosa News – March 8
…This week, the Tuscaloosa Community Dancers brings together its artists with those of the Alabama Ballet and the University of Alabama Department of Theatre and Dance to present evenings of widely varied repertoire. It’s the kind of cross-community collaboration that’s often talked about but difficult to arrange, said Rebecca Tingle, artistic director for the TCD…UA has been an off-and-on part of the TCD, as girls who have grown up under Tingle and other dance teachers have moved on to UA’s tutelage. “Cornelius (Carter, director of the UA dance program) is very vocal about wanting more community participation,” Tingle said. For last year’s “Nutcracker,” UA’s Rita Snyder helped set some pieces, and some UA women filled parts. The overlap continues this year with Tuscaloosa native Madison Leavelle, a TCD member who’s in UA’s “Mist Memory” and the TCD centerpiece, “Alice in Wonderland.” “They’re not getting paid anything to do this show,” Tingle said. “They’re coming because they want to, and to show support for (the TCD).” UA’s “Mist Memory,” set by assistant professor of dance Qianping Guo, will be the premiere of a piece that will be performed again in the season. Choreographer Ping is a former gold medalist in the 7th France International Ballet Competition, the world’s top ballet competition. His work was seen recently in UA’s “Moby-Dick,” choreographing the elementals who created waves, winds, whales and more. “Mist Memory” features nine dancers and runs about 10 minutes.
UA students motivate high school students
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – March 7
Some University of Alabama students are thinking outside the Quad and helping one local high school. . . . One psychology class is inspiring high school students to make a difference inside and outside their school. In one of the University of Alabama’s youth development psychology classes, students are motivating students at Holt High School to step up and make a change. Social psychologist Dr. Jeffery Parker says he wants both his students and the students at Holt to learn how to recognize a problem and consider the skills and resources for a solution, but most importantly, understand the true meaning of community service.
‘First Tee’ program passes on skills
Tuscaloosa News – March 8
Will Kelly’s introduction to The First Tee came at age 12. A golfer since he was 7, his parents heard about a program that was being offered for kids at Ol’ Colony Club that could help improve a child’s golf game. Now he’s introducing kids to the program as one of The First Tee Tuscaloosa instructors. “We’d heard it had something to do with golf, that it was some kind of clinic, and we figured the more lessons the better,” said Kelly, now 20 and a civil engineering major at the University of Alabama. “I didn’t realize this until later on, I guess because of how well it blends in to the teaching, but The First Tee is a lot about life skills. When you’re doing it, it seems like it’s under the radar, but it gets to them.