Author: Shara

Shara has been an important asset to the team since she was first introduced. Currently, she is co-manager of SOAP, and fills her position rather nicely with her unusual mix of technical and visial design skills. As the top AP Literature student at Dillard High School, her ability to write is simply sublime. Last year, she volunteered to head the Woodie Flowers submission and the result was magnificent. Although it did not win, it fueled her drive to strive to win it this year. In only a week, she pieced together a rock solid submission, which we all hope will put Z in the limelight.

The Submission

Perhaps the most difficult task to partake in is to learn how to adapt. Within only a few short months, the Sigmacat robotics team suffered two major losses. Losing not only their school mentor, Stanley Shelton, who had been the driving force in keeping the team together for the past three years, but more importantly, the students lost their team leader, Craig Bishop. These two men were the catalyst to many of the mentors' discontinuation from the robotics team. For some time, it looked as though there would not be a Sigmacat robotics team this year. Luckily, there was one person who decided that Sigmacat should compete. With great honor, we would like to nominate Zahir Hassan for the 2007 Woodie Flowers award.

Mr. Hassan, or "Z", as the team calls him, is the longest standing mentor on the team. He began mentoring when the team was created, and has yet to miss a season. Throughout his 12 year history with the team, he has helped aspiring engineers--many of which have become his co-workers at Motorola and have also in turn, come back to serve as mentors on the team-- learn to master their crafts. Despite the fact that the team has fatigued him over the years, he has shown no sign of deploration and continues to be relentless with each coming season. His efforts to ensure that the students are well versed in their respective fields of engineering are immeasurably advantageous not only to the team, but to each student's personal career goals; in doing this, Z's professional abilities serve as a catalyst for the successes of the future.

With his perennial involvement with FIRST, Z has proved to be not only an exemplar to Sigmacat, but to all of FIRST. He has assisted numerous teams including 408 and 1345. Zahir's ability to incorporate fun with learning has been inadvertently overlooked by the students until this season. Students enjoy being a part of our team mainly due to the entertaining environment the mentors have created. As leading mentor, Z effectively accomplishes his mission of perfecting his job every meeting in ways other teams cannot imagine. Because we are still young, our ability to constantly stay focused is rather lacking. In the last couple of years, the "fun factor" has dramatically decreased as the tensions between integral parts of the team have increased. This season, the atmosphere was totally renewed when the team was reconfigured in all ways possible, and Z was announced as the leading mentor. He quickly rose to the challenge and Sigmacat took off like never before. With the fun back into the mix, we were able to work harder, longer, and faster than in recent years. None of this would have been possible without the influence of Z.

Price Pritchett once said, "Change always comes bearing gifts." Though our team had lost a great deal this past season, we have come full circle, and are better than we have ever been. We the students are the future, and Z has made it his top priority to tend to our adolescence and enrich the future with the knowledge and support of today. It is with our esteemed privilege to nominate Zahir Hassan for the 2007 Woodie Flowers award.