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Unread 29-12-2011, 16:11
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Jimmy Nichols Jimmy Nichols is offline
Mentor,QCR Planning
FRC #1038 (The Thunderhawks)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Posts: 1,010
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Re: Engineering and Robotics program in danger

Another perspective to think about:

Our team was asked to leave the school this year, due mostly in part to the economic times. The school board, nor the school administration financially supported the team. Our teacher was a Technology Education teacher. They were forced to cut his program, as it was an elective and not at state required course. He fortunately, did lose his job and was asked to teach some different courses, but he lost his big lab we used and our dedicated spaces were reallocated by the school administration to storage and a classroom.

In our situation, the school board has always been extremely supportive, but the school principal has not. He was not against our program, just not supportive. We wanted to approach the school board when all of this was occurring, but our teacher feared that the principal would not look favorably at this and so he asked us to hold off. So in May we moved all of our equipment out and when school started back we began probing the school for space to no avail. We finally ended up leasing a space at a local mall that was extremely excited to have us and gave us an extremely low rate for the size and amenities.

Without our intervention, the school board did hear about what happened to our team and it was brought up at a school board meeting. Yet it did not lead to any efforts to get our team back in the school.

But we like the new space, and it should open up a lot of new opportunities for exposing others to FIRST and our program.
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Jimmy - Lead Mentor, Pit Boss, Miami Valley FRC Regional Planning Committee
Lakota Robotics - FRC Team 1038

2013 - Crossroads Team Spirit,Quarter-Finalists - Queen City WFFA - Paul George,Quarter-Finalists - Ohio FRC State Championship Champions
2012 - Queen City Volunteer of the Year,Team Spirit,Finalists - Smoky Mountains Engineering Inspiration,Quarterfinalists
2011 - Pittsburgh Semifinalists - Buckeye Engineering Excellence Award,Coopertition Award,SemiFinalists
2010 - Pittsburgh Judge’s Award,Quarterfinalists - Buckeye Industrial Design Award,Finalists - IRI Mentor Round Champions
2009 - Buckeye GM Industrial Design,Champions
2008 - Midwest Engineering Inspiration,Quarterfinalist - IRI Semifinalist
2007 - Pittsburgh Motorola Quality,Finalist - Buckeye Rockwell Automation Innovative Controls,Finalist - Championship Newton Quarterfinalist