Team Information
TEAM DESCRIPTION: Our Coach is Ethan Shannon, a high school chemistry teacher who has inspired many students to pursue engineering. He works together with Glenn Fonzi, a local business owner who works primarily with the robot. We have many parents and community members that are engineers, builders, welders, and draftsmen as well as a great tradition of parent volunteerism in our district so we hope to find help in these regards. Many of the parents work in companies like General Motors, Dow Chemical, and Consumers Energy.
BEGINNING: Our high school team will be in its third year come the 2016 season, our first season having been 2013-14. Our district had a team participate in the FIRST Lego League in 2012-13 and then gained a robotics team one year later to Garber High School . We have explored the possibility of putting a team together multiple times in the past, but finances have been a barrier. With several grants and matching funds available we are over halfway to our goal of having start-up funds and will actively pursue ways to keep the program going once it is established.
FOUNDERS: Our team was founded by Lori Flippin, our Assistant Superintendent, after seeing the positive experiences students had in the FIRST Lego League experience. This program is part of our district's commitment to providing extracurricular experiences to develop more well-rounded students. The Great Lakes Bay Region is actively pursuing STEM initiatives and is beginning to work together on a larger scale to create graduates that will enter more marketable fields for their careers.
MEMBERS: Our first season we began with three mentors and approximately fifteen students. Our second year we doubled in team members and gained a mentor who helped students construct a pit for competitions.
LOCATION: Our team is based out of Garber High School in Essexville, MI. Every element of each season that we use is built in our robotics lab. We also use the Metals/Woodshop room to make field elements for the robot.
WHAT WE DO: As a newer team, our focus has been generating interest in our school and community. We are using online resources to showcase our program and recruit students. We are in the process of becoming member of the Great Lakes Bay Consortium of teams so we can share ideas and use veteran teams as mentors.
RELATIONSHIPS: We have secured State of Michigan grant funding, and meet all of the requirements of the grant. We also have secured grant funding from Dow Chemical. Our team is also in close relations with the Bay City Morning Rotary Group, and they have expressed interest in mentoring. We also have strong partnerships with our school, our parent group, and Great Lakes Bay Business Education Partners (BEP).
GROWTH: As we launch our team, we hope to obtain sponsorships from various local businesses. We will continue to add team members and recruit other adult volunteers. We have previewed information online and plan to attend local fall “Forums” at Kettering University.
PLANS: Our long-term goals are to financially support multiple teams in our district. Another, is to continuously add in the amount of team members from season to season. Our goal was to have 25 members by our third season, that goal was exceeded by our second year. The Lego team started in 2012-13, but unfortunately only went for one year. This year we will continue the high school team and hope to add a middle school team by 2018. We are also striving to have fundraising in place to sustain all three. Student goals will be to strive to learn the overall structure of the program and develop and document at least one skill to an in-depth degree each year they participate.
SCHOLARSHIPS: Our team has had two students receive engineering scholarships and one in environmental science from FIRST, in the past two years. The amount of money given has ranged from $8,000 to over $22,000 to schools such as Eastern Michigan University, Michigan Tech University and Kettering University.
SOCIAL MEDIA: Follow us on Instagram and Twitter for updates and subscribe to our YouTube channel to see our weekly progress!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garberrobotics/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GarberRobotics?lang=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMef0tBb3kyQtdJEKa1VKDA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garberrobotics/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GarberRobotics?lang=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMef0tBb3kyQtdJEKa1VKDA