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Thank you to our 2017 sponsors!
GRANT COMMITTEE AND SPONSOR LETTER
Dear Grant Committee and Sponsors,
In a year when our school district consolidated our two high schools, I felt it was time to expand our FRC program and have 2 teams for one school. We have had great success with our veteran team 1684 (which drew from both schools) but it was obvious that some students were not having a rewarding experience with hands on the robot. Thus our membership seemed to cap at 25 every year even though we had much more initial interest. With our rookie team 5460 this year, we had the most sustained membership total of 32 students 9th - 12th grades in Lapeer Community Schools. We ran each team differently in hopes of providing diverse opportunities. The veteran team has evolved into the quintessential structured team that actually applied for Chairman's this year. The Chimeras - FRC 1684 has won many engineering and quality awards in addition to Wins and Finalists at many district events as well as a trip to Championship in 2013. There are 3 mechanical engineers who act as mentors as well as a young, dynamic coach. Then there's me - a 56 year-old programmer and business owner. I have personally designed hundreds of products over my career including a few autonomous mobile robots for commercial applications. But I don't design nor engineer "by the book". I do mechanical design like I write software. Bolt some stuff together and see how it works. If it's not right, delete it and try something else. I wanted to offer that approach to students who might not fit in to a more structured process.
With both mutually exclusive team cultures available, the coach of 1684 and I presented this to the new students and allowed them to pick what they thought might be a good fit for their personalities. We also had a few upperclassmen who caught the end of a build season or for whatever reason did not officially join the veteran team over the past 2 years come back to join 5460. One in particular stated that he didn't feel his skills were up to the standards of 1684 but thought he could do an OK job on 5460 ( he turned out to be our most skilled fabricator and designer as well as driver). So with a couple of veteran's from 1684 (who never really felt they got enough "robot" time) to help me as mentors, we set up an area in our shared workspace. The team members respected the dynamics and differences of the 2 teams and there was a little "us and them" but nothing negative. They always helped each other as the build season progressed.
Our philosophy for build was to have a working robot and interact with game pieces and the field at the end of each day. Seriously, we met 6 days a week and the intensity grew every evening to meet our goal of driving the robot and pushing, herding, lifting, and eventually stacking totes. For the last 30 minutes of each day during build, we could play the game at some level. I think this was our key ingredient for success this year. At the end of the game playing exercise, we evaluated our goal for the next day, made our plans, and gathered the necessary parts and tools. The next day, tear the robot apart to some extent and rebuilding it with improved function. This philosophy continued during our district competition season. Within the constraints of the robot access periods, we used every opportunity to tear down, rebuild, and test. This methodology brought us to Championship after qualifying through our Districts and District Championship. Even now in the off season, the urge to completely redesign the robot is tempting but the students still require of themselves that the robot be useable by the end of every meeting.
Along the way, the students were inspired by other teams. They scoured the internet for any videos of top robots. Analyzed their performance and incorporated as many concepts as were practical. We built within our means even though we were surrounded by teams that could do miraculous fabrication. We used off the shelf structural components that only required pop-rivets to fasten and pre-fab pieces to hold bearings. Although we have access to a mill and lathe, we did not do a lot of custom fabrication. We did however go thru 2 boxes of 500 rivets!
Build it. Test it. Tear it down. Make it better.
I was never a rookie coach before so I really didn't give them a lot of help with awards. We won Rookie All Star at our second district event. That's when I took the time to evaluate what we had accomplished as a team in addition to building a robot. We had a solid safety program. We documented our work in engineering notebooks. We already had a budding outreach program by doing demos at local schools and service clubs. A mentor relationship with FTC and FLL teams. And had already inspired the formation of more FLL and FTC teams. Just by doing what felt right.
So when we qualified for State Championship and later FIRST Championship. We just had fun with it and enjoyed the experience with no expectations.
Our team is putting together more content to share the experience but we haven't really had a break since getting back from St. Louis. We and team 1684 are helped our FTC teams put on a local event. Since we volunteered to run the event, the FTC students could actually participate in the event. We are now planning an FRC event called RoboCon which brings all of FIRST under one roof on July 25. Jr FLL, FLL, FTC, and FRC programs are set up to run exhibition matches inviting the public to not only watch but to get some "robot" time!
Thank you so much for helping me succeed in giving more students in our community an experience they will always remember. I own a very small engineering and manufacturing company and I get all of my employees through the FIRST program. As I grow the company with the help of these students, so will our involvement in FIRST.
Looking forward to continuing to expand FIRST in our area.
Best regards,
Tony
In a year when our school district consolidated our two high schools, I felt it was time to expand our FRC program and have 2 teams for one school. We have had great success with our veteran team 1684 (which drew from both schools) but it was obvious that some students were not having a rewarding experience with hands on the robot. Thus our membership seemed to cap at 25 every year even though we had much more initial interest. With our rookie team 5460 this year, we had the most sustained membership total of 32 students 9th - 12th grades in Lapeer Community Schools. We ran each team differently in hopes of providing diverse opportunities. The veteran team has evolved into the quintessential structured team that actually applied for Chairman's this year. The Chimeras - FRC 1684 has won many engineering and quality awards in addition to Wins and Finalists at many district events as well as a trip to Championship in 2013. There are 3 mechanical engineers who act as mentors as well as a young, dynamic coach. Then there's me - a 56 year-old programmer and business owner. I have personally designed hundreds of products over my career including a few autonomous mobile robots for commercial applications. But I don't design nor engineer "by the book". I do mechanical design like I write software. Bolt some stuff together and see how it works. If it's not right, delete it and try something else. I wanted to offer that approach to students who might not fit in to a more structured process.
With both mutually exclusive team cultures available, the coach of 1684 and I presented this to the new students and allowed them to pick what they thought might be a good fit for their personalities. We also had a few upperclassmen who caught the end of a build season or for whatever reason did not officially join the veteran team over the past 2 years come back to join 5460. One in particular stated that he didn't feel his skills were up to the standards of 1684 but thought he could do an OK job on 5460 ( he turned out to be our most skilled fabricator and designer as well as driver). So with a couple of veteran's from 1684 (who never really felt they got enough "robot" time) to help me as mentors, we set up an area in our shared workspace. The team members respected the dynamics and differences of the 2 teams and there was a little "us and them" but nothing negative. They always helped each other as the build season progressed.
Our philosophy for build was to have a working robot and interact with game pieces and the field at the end of each day. Seriously, we met 6 days a week and the intensity grew every evening to meet our goal of driving the robot and pushing, herding, lifting, and eventually stacking totes. For the last 30 minutes of each day during build, we could play the game at some level. I think this was our key ingredient for success this year. At the end of the game playing exercise, we evaluated our goal for the next day, made our plans, and gathered the necessary parts and tools. The next day, tear the robot apart to some extent and rebuilding it with improved function. This philosophy continued during our district competition season. Within the constraints of the robot access periods, we used every opportunity to tear down, rebuild, and test. This methodology brought us to Championship after qualifying through our Districts and District Championship. Even now in the off season, the urge to completely redesign the robot is tempting but the students still require of themselves that the robot be useable by the end of every meeting.
Along the way, the students were inspired by other teams. They scoured the internet for any videos of top robots. Analyzed their performance and incorporated as many concepts as were practical. We built within our means even though we were surrounded by teams that could do miraculous fabrication. We used off the shelf structural components that only required pop-rivets to fasten and pre-fab pieces to hold bearings. Although we have access to a mill and lathe, we did not do a lot of custom fabrication. We did however go thru 2 boxes of 500 rivets!
Build it. Test it. Tear it down. Make it better.
I was never a rookie coach before so I really didn't give them a lot of help with awards. We won Rookie All Star at our second district event. That's when I took the time to evaluate what we had accomplished as a team in addition to building a robot. We had a solid safety program. We documented our work in engineering notebooks. We already had a budding outreach program by doing demos at local schools and service clubs. A mentor relationship with FTC and FLL teams. And had already inspired the formation of more FLL and FTC teams. Just by doing what felt right.
So when we qualified for State Championship and later FIRST Championship. We just had fun with it and enjoyed the experience with no expectations.
Our team is putting together more content to share the experience but we haven't really had a break since getting back from St. Louis. We and team 1684 are helped our FTC teams put on a local event. Since we volunteered to run the event, the FTC students could actually participate in the event. We are now planning an FRC event called RoboCon which brings all of FIRST under one roof on July 25. Jr FLL, FLL, FTC, and FRC programs are set up to run exhibition matches inviting the public to not only watch but to get some "robot" time!
Thank you so much for helping me succeed in giving more students in our community an experience they will always remember. I own a very small engineering and manufacturing company and I get all of my employees through the FIRST program. As I grow the company with the help of these students, so will our involvement in FIRST.
Looking forward to continuing to expand FIRST in our area.
Best regards,
Tony
