question for teams created among multiple high schools

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Posted by John Larock at 04/29/2001 3:26 PM EST


Other on team #365, Miracle Workerz, from DuPont Engineering Explorer Post and DuPont .


In Reply to: question for teams created among multiple high schools
Posted by Scott England on 04/29/2001 2:44 AM EST:



This seaon, Team #365, The Miracle Workerz, is a conglomeration of students from 11 different high schools in three states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland). Most of the students are from 4 of the high schools, then we have a smattering of students from other local schools.

Our team started from a program DuPont Engineering sponsored for local high school students through and Explorer Post. This is an arm of the Boy Scouts. The program is co-ed and our purpose was to give high school students a realistic view of the engineering profession. This post has been in existance for over 30 years. Two years ago, our post was approached by a group in DuPont who was looking to sponsor a FIRST team. We jumped at the idea.

Our facility is a workspace on a local DuPont site. The facility has enough space for most of a playing field, workbenches, and a decent machine shop. Students all travel from their respective high schools to the work area each meeting, some travel relatively far (40 minutes), while others are closer.

We have no high school teachers or administrators on our team. Our adults consist of DuPont employees and interested parents. We also have a few adults who are neither, but are interested nonetheless.

Communication is done primarily via e-mail. About 98% of our students have accounts. We also have a hotline phone number that students/parents can call with up-to-date meeting info. Since we are not connected with just one school, making sure that we can communicate in a timely way with students is important.

A few of the represented schools are interested and some could care less. One school advertises only their students in local newspaper articles and makes it sound like the whole team is from their school (taking advantage of our situation). However, the school is very good at promoting our team's accomplishments.

Our goal, since we are one only two teams in our county in Delaware, is to seed high school teams in the area. I personally like the idea of having access to students of a variety of schools. It fits well with the FIRST mission. However, there are times when I could use some school representatives to make contacts and help with various facets of the team.

Please feel free to e-mail me directly if you would like any additional info.

Regards.

John Larock
John.A.Larock@usa.dupont.com