We are not eligible for chairmans award for the time being because of our Hall of Fame status, and even if we were, we still feel that we should not compete again for the award, but having said all that we still feel that every team should submit an entry whether competing for it or not. It makes you a better team by doing it. Keeps you focused on what is really important. Here is our entry:
Unlocking the doors to success
Robots are built with electronics, wires, gears and assorted parts. Building a team of quality robotics students is less mechanical. We build an environment that unlocks the doors to changing the culture through academic success, working with the community, sponsors, and mentors, and sharing knowledge. Our country is falling behind in STEM, we’ve become a nation of consumers not producers. In order to fix this, are changing the culture of America in the only way we can starting with our community. We want to produce more college engineering students from our high school, and we want to continually reach out to the next generation-- ensuring a continual stream of curious, scientifically-minded students. Similar to many schools affiliated with FIRST Carl Hayden is a Title 1 School with 85% of our students on free or reduced lunches. Most of the students’ parents never graduated from high school, much less attended college. Additionally, being a 98% Hispanic school, the females face even more challenges. Changing the culture internally is one of the biggest doors the team has to open. One way we are changing the culture is by sending more students to college who want to be engineers. American high schools send an average of 2 future engineers to college. By getting more students involved and excited about STEM at Carl Hayden, we are able to send more students into STEM degrees. Falcon Robotics for the past 4 years has sent 15 students to universities 12 of them entered engineering programs. This is still an extremely low rate compared to other countries like China and India and needs to change if America wishes to continue having the highest standard of living. Coming from a school with a graduation rate of 80% we take pride in our small accomplishment. Professors at Arizona State University (ASU) tell us that the graduation rate of students from Falcon Robotics is 100 percent. Our students don’t quit. They’ve learned perseverance by competing against students around the country in FIRST. An unusually high percentage of women at ASU pursuing STEM majors are from our robotics team. Our students’ get exposed to new career and life possibilities through the club. Bit by bit, we are helping to change the country’s low average and make a difference in the world. Elizabeth Perez, one of our juniors, said, “I didn’t know how many scholarships there are available, and this has helped me decide to be a biomedical engineer.” While we sent 6 females on to post secondary engineering programs over the past 3 years, there is still a large deficiency in the number of females involved in STEM. Due to this, we try to recruit as many females as possible into our robotics team and getting them actively involved in the program. We have an all girl underwater robotics team for the National Underwater Robotics Challenge and our FRC electrical team is made-up of mainly females. These team leaders also provide electrical workshops for FRC teams throughout Arizona. Maria Castro, team 842’s current vice president and leader for the girl’s underwater robotics team said, “It is one of our primary goals to change this offset of the gender gap involved in STEM and not just unlock the glass ceiling, but break it down.” Schools in our surrounding area face similar blockades. Team members have become the key when working as mentors to our surrounding elementary and middle schools. Every year team members volunteer to mentor their Lego teams. They go out to the schools weekly, showing the way and working with them every week up to competition day. This allows for vertical articulation, which basically is students of different ages working together. We serve as their mentors because many of us had high school students serve as our mentors. This year we ran a simulated competition for teams from throughout metropolitan Phoenix. Both rookie and experienced teams got a “feel” for the stresses” and heat of competition. We additionally host an Arizona regional tournament and help Arizona State University operate the state tournament. Our contributions to FLL and has drastically increased the number of Lego teams to over 200 teams in Arizona. Our team president Eduardo reflects back to his initial encounter with FIRST, “As a middle school student, I was invited to go see the Falcon Robotics Team at Carl Hayden High School. I went thinking I was a big shot Lego student, but soon realized I was nothing compared to their students. At that point I knew in order to someday be at their level there was a lot of hard work to be done. Once I started my high school career, I immediately joined the robotics team and had Mr. Lajvardi, the team coach, as a teacher for the first time. The class stared at 7 am, a zero hour, and was unlike any other class I have ever taken. In his class books are not used, in fact there is no curriculum. He gives you a problem that is just little too difficult with not enough time and that he doesn’t even know the solution to. What he does give you is the tools to find the solution.” One of the keys to success that Coach Fredi stresses is maximize you strengths and minimize you weakness. Communication is another key to our success as a team. We stay connected thanks to the wonderful organization that is Google, specifically with Gmail and Google Docs. With Gmail we are able to send messages to every member of our team almost instantly and with Google docs we can share documents and spreadsheets easily. We also have a team calendar which every member of our team has access to in order to make sure everyone is updated on what is going on. We also utilize Google Sketch-up to graphically design our prototypes prior to building. These Google applications help to ensure that we keep up-to-date on all aspects of the team. Additionally, we stay connected in many other ways such as Skype for video chats with other teams and Dropbox to store, sync, and, share files online. When hosting competitions or assisting ASU in running the State LEGO League Competition, we web-cast via Ustream giving those who could not attend a chance to watch. Finally, we communicate with our community through stories in newspapers and TV stations. We share all of the information we have. It doesn’t matter what dynamic idea we have, we make sure everyone knows about it by posting on bulletin boards such as Chief Delphi and FIRST Forums. We also provide detailed videos that present what we are doing every step of the way. We don’t do this to brag or show off. We simply believe the competition is better by sharing information to help other teams. We feel this makes our team stronger. We were rewarded this year by having another team return that spirit. FIRST team 39, now known as FTC 4314, has joined forces with us for this year’s FRC game. This new partnership will help us with this year’s FRC game as well as in the future games. Our sponsors and mentors continue to unlock many doors. One of our biggest sponsors we work with is none other than Intel. They have helped us in many different ways. They provide us with the latest in Intel computers and technology. They also fund us in special projects such as building a 3-D video system, providing state-of-the-art computers and making a robot that can navigate by itself. One of Intel’s newest employees is a recent college graduate and a former FIRSTer from team 1726 who now mentors Falcon Robotics. Smaller companies assist us by providing needed supplies such as nuts, bolts, screws, team banners and other supplies. One of our longest lasting sponsors is !NVENTIVITY. This company provides guidance in many ways, such as teaching computer and soldering skills. However, the most beneficial thing !NVENTIVITY does for us is sharing knowledge. INVENTIVITY is a small—one person—entrepreneurship owned and operated by Dr. Karen Shum. She provides more than guidance; she provides inspiration to the team. She is living proof that success is within our grasp and the glass ceiling can be broken. We also have 10 graduates who return to the nest in order to mentor the team. There are additional “external” mentors, but our internal Hayden mentors are the main players to our success. We have 6 teachers who are mainstays to helping our team. These men and women provide us the guidance to be successful and motivate us to be the best we can be. One way they help is by getting the team involved in other STEM activities. One way is by Team 842 hosting the National Underwater Robotics Challenge or NURC. We decided to create this competition based off the principles of FIRST. We implemented many principles and methods that really help spread the message of STEM. We also have a frequently updated website with much information about STEM and why it is important in today’s culture. We also compete in competitions held by some of our sponsors such as Sims Metal Management. They recently held a trebuchet competition that we competed in, allowing us to study catapults and to have fun sending objects hurling through the air. Being part of the Carl Hayden robotics team does not simply mean building and designing a robot. We could call it the “culture-changing” club. The students of Falcon Robotics team have built a motivated, well-oiled machine in which the primary objective is to spread the message of FIRST to all. We know the importance of STEM and have been personally been affected by it. The team is constantly coming up with new innovative ways to promote extracurricular STEM activities, knowing there is a payoff down the road. We are the door-openers of tomorrow. Falcon Robotics team members lead by example and build a strong network of support to lean on. All in all, we believe the Falcon Robotics team has created a combination of factors that is unlocking the doors to our collective and individual success.