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#25
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Re: Interesting stories of the 06 building season
Our story begins under a dark cloud, and I’m sure many of the mentors and engineers can relate at least in part to what I am going to say.
Unlike past years, our resource pool from work has been severely depleted (for many reasons). Engineers that we counted on in the past have moved on to other endeavors, retired, chose not to return, you name it. Times they are a changin ... So, this year it basically boiled down to me and Mark from Delphi working on the robot. Working on includes; Designing, Instructing, Mentoring, Teaching, Fabricating parts, and Assembling them together. With only the two of us from Delphi doing this, the students and Mike Martus stepped up and carried the heavy load. Many/Most of the parts were fabricated in the shop by the students, including the welding being entirely done by a student. Anyways, on the 3rd Saturday of the build everyone arrived to work on the robot except Mark. At first I wasn't worried, as I knew that Friday night is Bowling night and Mark probably just needed extra sleep. When Mark had not shown up by 9:30 I started to worry – then we got a phone call and it was Mark. He wanted to let us know where he was so we wouldn’t worry that something bad had happened – even though something bad was the reason he hadn’t shown up. Mark was upset as he informed us that when he got home from bowling he found his house was filled with smoke and a fire had started in his basement. Not to scare anyone – no one was home at the time and his house didn’t totally burn down to the ground, but he did lose one of his dogs, all the clothes, and most of the furniture to smoke damage. We told the rest of the team that day – everyone was concerned for Mark and plans were started to try and find a way to help him deal with the loss. We also realized that we would not have him around to help us for a few weeks as he needed to deal with the issues around not having a place to live, clothes to wear, and a sick dog (he saved the retriever by going into the house, finding his dog, and carrying it out). Mark, being the kind of person he is, stopped by an number of times to make sure we were getting everything done - he was concerned about the team missing the build date. We assured him that we would make it, and we did. I am proud of the students, coaches, and mentors dedication and determination to make this FIRST experience happen this year under extremely difficult situations – and as I told the team last Saturday, having completed the 6 week build phase is reason enough to celebrate ...everything after that is cake! And the FedEx truck showed up on time and the right day -so, things are looking up! Last edited by meaubry : 23-02-2006 at 11:50. |
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