well, i dont want to toot my own horn or anything (although that is now allowed in this thread, i have modesty issues
) but first of all, i want to wish all the teams elidgible for winning the Chairman's Award at The Championship Event the best of luck. we are all winners, and even if 29 of us dont make it to the Hall of Fame, we should not be discoraged, because since we have come this far, that means we truly do exemplify the true meaning of FIRST, and we should be proud of our accomplishments and continually strive to do better.
that being said,
wow, do we have some competition.
personally, i dont really think 233 is going to win Chairman's this year at this level (next year may be better), although, dont get me wrong, that would make me the happiest person in Atlanta for that moment in time. considering i started crying when we won chairman's at the regional level at Denver (i am the Project Manager for the Chairman's Award Group on my team and personally put my heart and soul into perfecting our essay and presentation for 2 years in a row), i'd probably faint or just end up crying again. ANYWAYS, i might as well explain what 233 has to offer on the basis of the criteria for the Chairman's Award, and if i can find where i saved our essay on my computer, i'll post it on the White Papers sometime within the next week.
(btw, this info is all just off the top of my head, so i might have missed over something...)
Personal Impact of FIRST Students involved with our team get involved in Careers they had never even considered as a result of their participation on the team. My brother, for example, considered a career in Aviation before he joined FIRST, but now, four years later, he is a Mechanical Engineering Major at FIT. The members of our team also learn valuable Tech Skills, ranging from how to use a hammer, to how to design using the computer program Pro-E, to the actual fabrication of the field and the robot, as well as valuable animation, programming, and electrical skills, taught by our wonderful mentors, most of them being NASA engineers. Being on the team builds self-confidence and leadership skills, especially for those involved in Project Management. i know from a personal standpoint, i used to be absolutely horrible at time management, but being put in several leadership positions over the past two years has helped me gain valuable leadership skills that i will continue to use for the rest of my life.
(thank you FIRST!) Also, being a part of the team has given students and teachers/mentors alike new motivation in their lives. It gives students the motivation to study and do well in school, since we have a GPA requirement to be a part of the team, and it also sparks the interest of teachers and mentors by giving them something new, fun, and challenging to do. Lifelong friendships are a result of working year-round with teammates and mentors on team--the experience is lifechanging. An alumni of the team, Denny Caldwell for example, made grades ironically representative of what many of his teachers thought he had: A-D-D-A-D-D-D, the A's being in Math and Science, and the D's in all of the other subjects that did not quite strike his interest. in a single semester after joining the team, Denny
doubled his GPA, and moved on to have a successful carreer in life, and come back to team 233 as a mentor!
Community Impact of FIRST Our team is involved with a lot of community service--for several years we have worked with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for the homeless, and just this past year, when Nature was so greatful as to hit our area with FOUR hurricanes, we all got together and did hurricane cleanups between and after hurricanes, cleaning up debris on what was left of the beach at the time and on the little islands in the river separating our schools. Also, year-round we are doing Robot Demos at Schools, Organizations, and places like that--it has even gotten to the point that instead of us contacting a venue asking if we could demo our robot and promote awarness FIRST, the venues themselves are contacting us first, asking if we could please bring the robot and tell the community more about this wonderful thing called FIRST robotics! Just last week i was at a demo at the KSC All-Americal Picnic/Return to Flight Rally. the robot was a hit! we allowed kids and adults alike to drive the robot and attempt to stack three tetras on top of one another as we spoke about FRC and FLL. (i even ended up becoming a role-model of sorts for a few of the girls who showed up there, and exploited the opportunity to urge the girls to be sure to study hard in math and science in school... heehee) We have even made an Activity Book that we bring to hand out to kids at demos, so that the children may have something more tangible than simply the memory of how cool the robot was. the activity/coloring ABC book consists of mazes and connect the dots, wordsearches and coloring pages, as well as explaining the mission of FIRST and telling a little about our team.
We also are very involved in FIRST Lego League. this year alone we started and mentored 28 local teams in our county! we founded the 1st Sunshine State FLL Tournament, and we continue to host it at FIT, having our team members volunteer to actually run the tournament, participating in every aspect, from refereeing to crowd control and everything inbetween. This year (the 4th year we've hosted the tournament) we had 54 teams from all over Florida and Jamaica come and participate at the tournament!
(i was a ref there, and trust me, we were at maximum capacity +1)
We have started two other FRC teams (M.I. Tide, which won the Peachtree Regional this year, and the Bionic Tigers, which won the UCF Regional this year with us) and they, along with The Children of the Swamp and Team Voltage make up the Brevard Alliance, where we share our funds, fundraisers, and information. We also mentor several teams across the globe. We formed the Trans-Atlantic Alliance last year as we kept in touch with and mentored the British team, but had to upgrade it to the Intercontinental Partnership this year, as we also mentor a team in Israel and in Puerto Rico. We mentored team Harmony (1604) this past year, as well as another team in Colorado, and as long as we're talking about westward expansion, we already have an alliance with a team from Hawaii set up for next year.
Team Communications Our team communicates with each other mainly through e-mail blasts, but we also communicate with our website, which has a calendar of events, letting us know the dates and times of various different functions of the team, from demos to team parties to fundraisers. there is a members-only Hours Page that informs the team members of how many hours they have dedicated to the team, as well as how many fundraisers and community service hours they have dedicatied. There is also a survey that team members take at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year, to see how team members have changed in regards to career preferences and interest in school and things of that nature throughout their experience with FIRST robotics. We also use an advanced scouting system (consisting of notecards and pens and paper, but is soon to be upgraded to Palm Pilots and wi-fi..
i dont know all the technicalities, sorry! i'll try to get them if you're more interested though... send me a PM and i'll try to get the details for you) that everyone is involved with. At the beginning of the competition season, the entire team gets together and watches a webcast together and practices scouting, to ensure that we are all on the same level in understanding of the game and its rules and how to scout in the same manner. We use FileMaker Pro and create Team Daciees
(i KNOW thats spelled wrong.. i'm sorry my spelling is horrific) with a picture of the team's robots and its statistics for use while scouting.
Rockledge High even has its own Technology Curriculum
(unfortunately i do not attend rockledge and cannot really speak from experience about the awesomeness of the class). It is a year-long class that is visited by teachers and engineers alike who speak of their professions in relation to technology and robotics. the class teaches topics such as Pnematics, Bridge Design & Construction, Pro-E Software, Computer Programming, Electronics, Electrical Design, Controls, Mechanical Design, and much more.
(i seriously wish they had this class at my school. i barely know anything about any of those topics...)
Partnerships As mentioned above, we have partnerships with other teams across the globe in alliances such as the Brevard Alliance and the Intercontinetal Partnership (formally known as the Trans-Atlantic Alliance), and we are also a part of the South Florida Chapter of the RoboChicks Union (RCU), working to promote Women/Girls in science and technology. we also have wonderful partnerships with our sponosors (such as NASA KSC, United Space Alliance, and other Local Sponsors) who get so involved in what we do as a team, that they even send us Mentors to help us out. our partnerships with our mentors is phenominal--they are like family to us. we a blessed to have NASA Engineers, Technicians, and Programmers
(the same people who work on the Orbiter and send the Space Shuttle into space!! XD), as well as teachers and rediculously awesome people like Kit Gerhart, as mentors.
How We're a Role Model The Space Coast FIRST Team (aka The PINK Team) #233 is a role model for other FIRST teams in many ways. Most Apparently it would be because of our flamboyant SPIRIT! (come on, how hard is it to miss 73 people dressed in pink?) Also, we love to help other teams in need of a helping hand in a crisis. on several occasions our wonderful Pit Crew has shown exempliary Gracious Professionalism in aiding teams in need. We help spread the word of FIRST through demos and such, and we help other teams by sharing funds, sharing our sponsors, and even sharing our mentors! our scouting techniques took forever to perfect, and we are always willing to help teams develop their own scouting methods to best suit their own needs, and of course, our robots are always stellar. we have a robotics class at one of the schools which teaches students about various aspects of Robotics in regards to science and technology, and while working with the RCU, we promote Women in Technology. of the four people in our Pit Crew, Three of them are Women, and they really know their stuff. our Tool-Girl, Shaara, is only a freshman, but she knows more that most senior boys on the team when it comes to the robot! This summer we will be hosting a Girl's Robotics Summer Camp for a week in conjunction with the Society of Women Engineers.
this is our 7th year as a team, and we have accomplished much in that time. here is an abridged version of the
Competative Awards we have recieved in that time:
- 1999 Rookie: Kennedy
- 2000 Photogenic: Kennedy; Driving Technology: New England & World
- 2001 DCX Spirit: Kennedy; Finalist, GM Design: Philly; QF: World
- 2002 Quality, Incredible Play: Canada; Archemedies Champ, Leadership in Controls, Incredible Play: World
- 2003 Finalist, GM Design, Imagry: Central Florida; Winner, Imagry: Pacific Northwest
- 2004 Finalist, Imagry: Central Florida; Winner, Leadership in Controls: NYC; QF World
- 2005 Winner, Leadership in Control (they changed the name..idr right now): Central Florida; Winner, Imagry, Website, Chairman's: Denver
i think thats it for the most part, with out going way too much into detail... i hope i didnt miss or skip over anything.
Once again, i wish the best of luck to 11, 48, 60, 65, 67, 79, 111, 118, 236, 340, 341, 342, 358, 365, 368, 384, 393, 501, 503, 694, 812, 842, 931, 957, 1002, 1006, 1014, 1108, 1241!