How did you thank your engineers/mentors/sponsors this year?

[Jaine Perotti]

Andy Brockway and David Lindsay, our 2 main mentors, have been with us since the very beginning. They have been sooo generous to give up their time to teach and lead us. They teach us by letting us make mistakes...that way we will never make the same ones again.

David Lindsay (Coach), is an HVRHS Science teacher. He is truly wonderful. He founded our team after learning about robotics at a conference. He sought help from the Aztechs (team 157) who were very generous to us in our first year and donated some parts. Now his primary role is to coach us, do paperwork, organize, and set team goals (as well as fall asleep in the oddest places during our competitions.) He also is responsible for driving the team (and getting us lost)to and from our competitions, including to Atlanta (this guy says that next year we will get to Atlanta via San Diego) Because of his dedication , we gave him the first annual "David Lindsay Award" for his years of leadership and dedication he has given to our team.
Andy Brockway (mentor and chief strategist) is a mechanical engineer who works for BD (Becton Dickenson). His philosophy has always been to recognize and teach the importance of good attitude, to make the best of any and all failure that you may encounter, and to teach us by not always giving us the answers right away. I am always amazed at his talent for leading us as a group, whether it is brainstorming sessions or a crisis in the pit. He has taught us not to rush into the design process...rather we should figure out our strategy and what we want to do first. During build season, if he knows you are about to make a mistake, he will not tell you about it (unless it is really serious) so that you can find out about it yourself and truly understand the problem. This happened to me several times this year, and even though it was not always the most fun way to learn, it was certainly the most effective. I know that I will not do the same things again (hopefully). He also teaches us the importance of good planning. He will not let us rush into building a part without drawing it out and getting every dimension first...even if we "know" exactly how we are going to build it. This is because often you do not take certain things into account and other people will understand your ideas better if you can draw them out. This is also the best way to fabricate something. He taught us that if you know exactly how you will make a part by drawing it out, you will have less room to make machining mistakes. Andy is a great thinker as well as an engineer...he understands the meaning of gracious professionalism and strives to teach us the meaning of this value. He teaches us to understand the importance of diplomacy toward other teams, and teaches us that FIRST is foremostly about learning, inspiration, and teamwork, and about competition last. It is not battlebots.

In addition to our two main advisors, Dave and Andy, we have countless other volunteers and mentor on our team...Dave V. who helps us with fabrication (and paint jobs) and who is a skilled tradesman, "Big" Pat R. who is a carpenter and helps us build the playing field, as well as videotape our matches, "Doc", chemistry teacher who tye-dyes our team shirts,plus all of the many parents and other volunteers who bring in food. I also can't forget to mention all of the other supportive staff members at our school who give us moral support, as well as make sure we get money from the school budget, especially our wonderful principal who lent us her beach home in New Jersey for the J&J regional.

Thanks to all who made this year, our best year yet, possible!!!