2018-2019 Chairman's Award Essay
Every Little Bit Helps!
We are team 3883, The Data Bits. We have been competing as a team since 2011. Our team strives to build FIRST and STEM “bit by bit” in our local schools by raising excitement and generating interest in FIRST and STEM from high school to elementary school students.
At the high school level, our team has worked hard bit by bit to be officially recognized within our school. We now participate in numerous events inside our school that make students familiar with FIRST Robotics. One of those events is Wolfpack Welcome, where incoming freshmen have the opportunity to see the activities they can join in high school. We talk to and demonstrate the robot to the current 8th graders to spark an interest in robotics. Another school activity that we participate in is our school’s Homecoming. Every year, we take part in homecoming events such as the parade and Pep Fest. We decorate our float for the parade, and this year we displayed our 2013 Ultimate Ascent robot to hundreds of people in our community. We also make an appearance at Pep Fest showing off the FIRST Robotics program and the previous season’s robot to over 1,800 students. By participating in all these school events last year, 21 new students joined the team, which doubled our membership from the previous year.
We also have been establishing our presence bit by bit at the middle school level. During the course of our nine years, our team has presented at many different events. In 2016, our team partnered with our two other district teams: 3130, “The ERRORS” and 3206, “The Royal T-Wrecks”. Teams went on a tour of all the district 833 middle schools, giving a demonstration at each school. The biggest middle school event that we have attended since 2014 is Oltman Middle School’s Math & Science Night. At this event, all middle school students and their parents are able to attend. Many booths from organizations such as the police department, the Bailey Nature Center, and Marathon Petroleum also attend this event to give presentations about what they do in their field to give students an idea of what they could do within the field of STEM careers. We were invited to join them at this event to inform students about how they can get involved in robotics and STEM as teenagers. Our high school FTC team, 7232 “The Dyna-Bytes,” joined us. After the event ended, we were approached by Oltman’s principal, who after seeing our FTC team, was interested in having one at the middle school. Due to our participation this night,we started FTC team 8736, “The TermiRaiders” that fall.
FTC teams 7232 and 8736 allowed us to further introduce FIRST and STEM into the younger minds of our community. 2017 was a particularly successful year for team 8736 because over 20 students joined the team. Around this time we were starting preparations to make 7232 a middle school FTC team and to be relocated at another local middle school, Cottage Grove Middle. This was because of all the high schoolers on the team graduating and the team wanting to have an FTC presence at our other local middle school. But that summer we were notified that Oltman got a new principal and that the school was going to be rebuilt in a new location. We had to contact the new principal to reorganize the teams at the new school. Due to the new transition of schools our FTC team has been put on hold for the last two years. This fall, we got into contact with the principal and she is excited and willing to restart the FTC program for the 2020 season. Bit by bit we have been rebuilding our missing pieces.
Bit by bit our team has been implementing FIRST and STEM within our local elementary schools. Over the years we have given various presentations and demonstrations to the elementary schools in our area. Every year our team attends the Royal Oak’s Art and Science Fair at Royal Oak Elementary. At this event, we answer questions and allow the students to drive one of our chassis bots. A similar event was held at the Park Grove Library where we were asked to give a demonstration to a group of elementary school kids. We took this bit with a hope that it would generate more interest in the students who want a FIRST program at their own school.
This year our team has been able to build onto the bits we have left behind at one of our local elementary schools, Crestview Elementary. In 2015, our team gave a demonstration for the first time at the school. Since then, we have talked with their administration about starting an FLL team at the school. At first, they were not interested because they did not think there was enough interest to start and sustain a team; however, last year we were contacted by a staff member from Crestview asking if we could hold a robotics session at their end of year celebration, Discovery Day. We held four sessions with 20 students in each. Our session consisted of a short FLL presentation, an interactive portion where they used creativity and problem-solving to create balloon-powered cars. The session was a huge hit, and many kids inquired about having an FLL program at the school. This led to our team helping start up one FLL JR, and two FLL teams at the school. There are five students on the FLL JR team, 17041 “Crestview Creators JR” and 21 total students on the two FLL teams: 43391, “Crestview LEGO Crew” and 42609, “Crestview Creators”. The students had a fantastic time during the season and cannot wait for FLL next year.
To ensure that our team continues to build bit by bit in and outside our community, our team helps our own members become leaders for today and for the future. We help our members learn essential skills such as public speaking, formally writing essays and emails, and teaching others. One of the ways we do this is FLL student mentoring. Every week during the FLL season we had five members of the team walk down to help the kids with all of their projects. We also expose the members to new interests, hobbies, and skills that will help them decide what they want to do in the future. One of our alumni said, “FIRST robotics made me the person who I am today, probably more than anything else in my life. It took a terrified little 9th-grader who could hardly say ‘hi’ to someone sitting next to me and turned me into a confident, optimistic biomedical engineering student who is eager to lead others. I've learned how to approach complex real-world problems, explain my ideas to strangers, and make new friends. That's the power FIRST robotics can have on people, and I am infinitely grateful for FRC and team 3883 for making me who I am today.” Student experiences like this show why our team strives to inspire team members to not only build a robot, but to also build their futures.
During the off-season, our team participates in many events to help expand our presence. One of the events that our team attends every year is the Minnesota State Fair. At the Fair, we hold three sessions that include a brief overview of our team and the other FRC teams participating, a short presentation about FIRST, and a robot demonstration. The Fair is a great opportunity for our team to build bonds with people and companies outside of our usual reach. Our team also participates in our communities’ parades. The Strawberry Fest in Cottage Grove, Pioneer Days in Newport, Heritage Days in St. Paul Park, and Woodbury Days in Woodbury. This past summer our team joined up with our biggest sponsor, Marathon and three other district FRC teams to participate in the summer parades. At the parades we passed out flyers that talked about FIRST robotics and how they could be involved in the world of FIRST. These parades were a fantastic chance for our team, not only to connect with the community but to develop stronger bonds with other district FRC teams. Over the years we have expanded our off-season quite a little bit and will continue to do so in the future.
During the off-season, we hold a collaborative event with FRC teams 3130, “The ERRORS”, 2175, “The Fighting Calculators”, and team 3206, “The Royal T-Wrecks”, called the “East Metro Collaborative Off-season Competition” (EMC2 for short). This was our second time holding this collaborative event. It has been an excellent opportunity to connect and create bonds with other teams in an exciting and relaxed environment and to give new members a glimpse of what FIRST Robotics Competition is all about. Over 25 teams from all over Minnesota attended the event to compete. Bit by bit we have also implemented the other parts of the FIRST program into this event. This year we had an FLL demonstration as well to show the community members attending what the other parts in the FIRST program are all about.
What we do would not be possible without our sponsors. Our current sponsors are: Thomson Reuters, 3M, SolidWorks, and Marathon Petroleum. 3M has been sponsoring our team since we were first founded in 2011. Each summer they invite us, along with other teams they sponsor, to visit their headquarters in Maplewood at an event called “Robots Invade the Plaza”. While we are there, we demonstrate our robot from the season and talk with the employees answering questions and talking about their careers. Both our members and their employees have a great time at the event learning from each other. SolidWorks has graciously provided our team with 50 licenses to their program which has lead to our team creating a new CAD subdivision within our team. Marathon Petroleum has been the most influential to our team. They have provided us with a new practice field and have given us skilled mentors along with funding for team expenses.
Every little bit helps, but bits by themselves are limited. When you connect the bits and put it all together, it creates an intricate system. A system that depends on all of the bits working together to make the machine operate. We are team 3883, and these are all of the bits that keep our machine, The Data Bits, functioning.