Author: Noelle

As a sophomore, Noelle has already worked her way up the ladder, taking responsibility for several team functions. This year, she has taken charge as the team's project manager. She manages all of the intricacies of the team, and does better than anyone has before. Additionally, she has found her place on the mechanical team, SOAP, and awards division. Because of her abilities, she was the ideal choice for heading up this year's Chairman's submission. The submission below is the product of several weeks of Noelle's hard work to pull together all aspects of the team, and package it nicely in the most complete and accurate Chairman's submissions in SigmaC@T history.

The Submission

With 12 years under our belt, being the oldest FIRST team in Florida, it's our joy and responsibility to be a role model to other teams. One thing we value most about our team is the level of diversity. We give everyone a chance to experience and become involved with FIRST and join together for the common goals of learning, knowledge, and innovation. That's why our team consists not only of "techies," but performing arts and athletic students as well. These individuals are all encouraged to apply their talents to the field of engineering, and we value their input when it comes to designing and building the robot, and other aspects of the team. We embrace FIRST's passion for spreading the FIRST message, especially to minorities and females.

The cycle of FIRST, a process in which a member starts out as a student on a FIRST team, attends college and mentors a FIRST team, and comes back to mentor the team as an employee of the company that once mentored them, is a rather common procedure on Team 108. Each year, at least one SigmaC@T student earns an internship at Motorola, then starts or mentors a new team upon entering college. There are many SigmaC@T alumni that currently mentor teams locally, such as Arefin Bari, who now mentors 1345, and Matt Kaplan, who mentors 1902. FIRST has a long-lasting impact on the lives of the SigmaC@Ts, as most members of our team enter college majoring in an engineering-related field, later pursuing a career in science or technology.

In addition to inspiring individual students, our involvement with FIRST has inspired large-scale changes to the team, school, and community, as well as valued partnerships. Taravella and Dillard High School, long-time rivals in athletics, are now allies for the sake of knowledge. Thanks to the robotics teams, both Taravella and Dillard have now had robotics classes in their curriculums since 2002. Also, thanks to Dillard’s partnership with Motorola, Dillard was able to become the second high school in the country to become part of the Motorola "Building Bridges and Futures Program." This program puts students alongside professional Motorola software engineers to design and develop java software applications that will be integrated into iDEN mobile devices. It also helps students develop real-life skills in problem-solving, marketing, and teamwork.

SIGMAC@T INC.

Modeling our team organization from the workplace environment that Motorola shares with us, we have succeeded in functioning just like them. To effectively manage the team, we have an executive team of managers and co-managers for each subteam. Managers submit resumés at the beginning of the year to be considered for a manager position, and they are selected based on leadership capabilities, experience, and dedication. There is also a Team Leader to manage the team as a whole, a Project Manager to make sure that everyone is on task and that the team is moving on schedule, and a Treasurer to oversee the team’s financial matters. At the beginning of the year, managers and co-managers are responsible for creating a curriculum for our fall training sessions for new members.

Our team is organized into 5 subteams, Mechanical, Electrical, Software, SOAP, and Graphics & Animation. The first three subteams work together to construct the robot, while SOAP focuses on scouting, and Graphics & Animation work on the Animations for the competition, and visually conveying our team.

As with any corporation, we value diversity on our team. Composing our team mainly of students from the Emerging Computer Technology and Performing and Visual Arts magnet programs at Dillard High, we have almost an equal share of “techies” and art students. Also, with almost 50% of our team being from a minority group, we are open to students of all backgrounds. We prize the special, creative edge that these diverse individuals bring to the team each year. Our doors are always open to any interested students, even if they’re not the typical computer geek or math whiz.

Every student was given the opportunity to voice their ideas for the robot and strategy after kickoff. Students worked individually or in groups to create presentations for their designs or ideas. After the presentations, students were also matched with the engineers from their subteam to review designs and brainstorm. For the next few weeks, student and engineers worked closely, often like colleagues to complete the goal of building a robot. Many lessons were learned during this short time period, some lessons about robotics and engineering, some about the workplace, and even about life skills. The bonds between students and engineers are more than just typical teacher-student relationships, but more of a relaxed learning experience instead.

THE OFF-SEASON

As any team faces difficult challenges, the SigmaC@Ts have also been through their share of hard times this year, with news that our robotics teachers and main team lead at Motorola would not be returning at each school would not be returning. Luckily, we received a new robotics teacher with robotics experience and one of our other mentors stepped up to the plate of being team lead. At the beginning of the year we went straight to work, preparing and organizing for the season to come, holding two early meetings at Motorola, and beginning extensive training sessions weekly to train new members.

We are already preparing for an active off-season. With plans for “108’s Engineering Handbook”, each subteam is creating an in-depth manual covering all aspects of their subteam. We plan to use this handbook in the fall to train new and inexperienced members, and also offer it to the rest of the FIRST community, both rookies and veterans. 108’s Engineering Handbook will not only contain information about each subteam, but also valuable information about Project and Team Management, Strategy, Competition Advice, and much more.

SPREADING THE WEALTH, LITERALLY

We believe that wealth does not only exist in monetarily, but also in the form of knowledge. We value our abundance of wealth, never hesitating to offer our help to another team or organization.

We are very grateful for our amazing partnership with Motorola, for with them we have almost unlimited resources at our hands, and dedicated engineers to guide us. We value the thousands of dollars that Motorola invests in our team each year, and the long hours that the engineers put in with us. However, because we know that not all teams are this fortunate, we take many steps towards sharing these resources with FIRST as well as the community. In the past we’ve machined parts, written code, and shared our workspace with numerous other FIRST teams. In previous years, we’ve helped local teams 1841, and 1029.

One of our greatest resources that we provide to other teams is SOAP (SigmaC@T Opponent Analysis Program) which is FIRST’s first scouting program. Each year since 1999, SOAP consistently provides footage of matches and statistical scouting data from regionals that we attend and many others. This vital information is available to teams at the events we attend and also on our website. We dedicate thousands of dollars of funding and equipment and over a third of our team members to work for this program. Through SOAP, Team 108 is able to deliver the FIRST experience to the lives of anyone with an internet connection. In the past, other teams have even merged their scouting networks with ours to provide more accurate information. In recent years, SOAP has expanded to include many other teams that are willing to send in their scouting data and videos to add to our massive scouting database. SOAP students have even created a guide for other FIRST teams on “How to SOAPify Your Regional” so that other teams can help to expand SOAP’s range.

This year, some of the SOAP students, or SOAP Bubbles, decided to take SOAP and make it their own, by creating a SOAP opera. In each episode, the girls teach lessons based on the messages that FIRST encourages, such as teamwork, gracious professionalism, and safety, in a humorous and entertaining manner.

We take part in transferring knowledge to the next generation of engineers and scientists by mentoring several FIRST LEGO League teams. Students from our team mentored local teams, 1303, The RoboColts, and a team from Country Hills Elementary. Also, our team has crossed international borders, with mentors starting a Motorola-sponsored FLL team in Haiti. Upon their arrival in the United States, our team aided with their competition preparations.

Each year, we are more than happy to offer our help whenever necessary, whether robotics-related or not. One of our members offered his trilingual abilities to relieve the language barrier of a rookie Brazilian team. Members often go out of their way to introduce FIRST to those interested at other technology events, such as SECME and Robot Wars competitions. We have also showcased our robot and program at demonstrations at Wal-Mart, various malls, and also at the Broward County Magnet Showcase to get the community involved in FIRST and attract new students. Earlier this year, we invited a local Girl Scout troupe, mentored by a member of our team, to our facilities to introduce the girls to robotics and technology.

This season alone, our team has volunteered for two Habitat for Humanity projects and a Diabetes Walk. Each year we supply volunteers for the local FLL event in addition to the off season event Mission Mayhem. Members also volunteer at the Broward County Science fair yearly.

THANKS, FIRST!

We thank FIRST for the experiences they've given all of us, and we value every one of our 12 years with FIRST. As one of our advisors once said "You could never get this kind of experience when I was young. This is just amazing."