[Rich Kressly]

1712 (and the larger LMHS Tech & Engineering Club) has adopted a few important values/ideals/notions as we've grown over the last 6 years. Here are the most important...

A. our team name "Dawgma" combines our school mascot, a bulldog, and "dogma" which refers to a strong belief system.

B. our motto has been "Designing on all Fours" for the past four years which, again, ties our school mascot with the four ideals or "legs" we stand upon:
1. Passion
2. Leadership
3. Perseverance
4. Community

C. For the past two years we've worn Chinese symbols on our shirt sleeves that loosely translate to "favorable energy" which has many ties to FIRST ideals of coopertition and GP as well as provide a reminder of something simple that all people (and robots) could use.

D. As part of our business plan this past year, the team also published a mission statement for the first time:
- "To inspire socially conscious leaders in STEM and related fields"

As for informing the team/others:
Every time we "name" or "describe" something about ourselves we take great care to do it with meaning, and inform/educate members along the way. We publish documents for the public and ourselves that help in this process as well as hang grapics/signs in our lab, and frequently build our Chairman's entries around these core values/key phrases.

We work hard to build all that we do around our mission, name, and ideals and, personally, I cannot imagine helping to run any organization that doesn't make every effort possible to ground its efforts in what's most meaningful for its members. As I tell the team, "... otherwise, we're just a bunch of kids playing with expensive toys ... "