Our Outreach
FIRST is about more than just building robots; FIRST is about changing the culture in which we live. Our mission is to help transform students into engineers, and engineers into heroes. Over the history of our team, we have followed a roadmap to this success, and have promoted an atmosphere of competition while sustaining gracious professionalism. In the hope that other teams will be able to learn from our experiences, we have released a collection of documents detailing the processes that we have developed; we hope that these documents will help other teams to create their own roadmap to success.
"The Roadmap To Success" - A detailed roadmap to success, discussing our history of inspiring culture change.
- "GPS - Gracious Professionalism Simbot-style" - A detailed description of the efforts we have made towards transforming culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honour for science and technology.
- "The Simbot Effect" - A map of all those who have been touched by our outreach programs. Learn the potential effect of your own roadmap.
- Simbotics In The Media - Detailed media coverage of our journey across the map.
Chairman's Submission
This is an archived essay. It was used as the Chairman's Award submission for the 2008 season. Some of the information in this document may be out of date.
Simbotics receives the Chairman's award at the Waterloo Regional.
The goal of FIRST is to “transform the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honour for science and technology”. For the past 6 years, Team 1114, Governor Simcoe SS and General Motors St. Catharines Powertrain, “Simbotics” have been seeking innovative and effective ways of keeping the focus of our team on this goal. To reach a destination of a transformed culture we have followed our “Roadmap to Success” and navigated it with “GPS: Gracious Professionalism Simbot-style”. On this journey our team has made many stops, from visiting our team history, examining our partnerships and spreading the message of FIRST.
The first stop on the Roadmap to Success is our team’s history. Over the past three years, we have established ourselves as leaders in the FIRST community. This was a result of our innovative methods to start sustainable and successful rookie teams. Since 2005, we started 4 rookie teams. All of these teams (1503, 1680, 2056, 2166) won rookie awards, and attended the Championship event in Atlanta, where they made the eliminations. In that 3 year span, over 20% of the rookie teams to make the elimination rounds in Atlanta were started by Simbotics. This rate of creating successful teams is unparalleled in FIRST. Due to this success, 1114 was selected by FIRST President Paul Gudonis for induction into the President’s Circle.
Our successes are also reflected in honours received by our mentors. Two have won regional Woodie Flowers Awards, and 2 have received the Volunteer of the Year award. In 2006, 1114 was the first Canadian team to organize and run an off-season event, the Canada’s Wonderland Off-Season event. Our team has also been recognized by FIRST Chairman John Abele and former FIRST president Paul Shay for outstanding leadership and innovative methods of spreading the word of FIRST.
FIRST’s mission is to create science and technology heroes, this is always at the forefront of everything 1114 does. The use of mentors is integral to this process – it is near-impossible for a team to create these heroes without exposure to industry professionals. Our mentorship takes place within and external to our team.
Within our team, we have initiated several programs to help with this goal. Our “Big Simbot-Little Simbot” program is in its second year. The program pairs our students (Little Simbots) with individual mentors (Big Simbots). The Big Simbots are more than just robotics mentors – they help their Little Simbots with academics, course selection and general advice.
This has created a bond between our students and mentors, allowing students to learn more than just robot-building skills. We have a close partnership with our main sponsor, General Motors St. Catharines Powertrain. Since 2004, 11 FIRST alumni have been hired by the plant for internships. Through GM’s involvement with FIRST and 1114, they have learned that FIRST alumni have the skills needed to succeed.
Solidifying our partnerships; Team 1114 students with GM executive sponsor Stephen Rourke after presenting to the superintendents of the District School Board of Niagara.
Outside of our team, we use revolutionary methods of mentorship to strengthen the FIRST community. In 2005 1114 created a growth model that used collaboration to better utilize resources, and started 1503 & 1680. Since this model was published, over 15 teams across North America started follow-up collaborations. This season we extended our reach, helping start a rookie team in Toronto at Don Mills CI, Team 2505, and long distance mentoring Team 2427 in Montreal. We have helped 3 schools in the Niagara District School Board receive funding for FIRST, and go out of our way to help other teams at competition.
Along the roadmap, Team 1114 has tackled the mission of changing culture in several ways, addressing different communities in different ways. We have been part of a true culture shift within our school, team, and many communities.
Our school was known as a sports school. Through our team’s efforts to change this perception, GSSS is now known as both a sports and technical school. The culture shift within our school is exemplified by a new partnership between the robotics and football teams. The 2 teams paired up this year to host BBQs at football games to make the game more spectator friendly and raise funds for robotics. Since our team’s inception, there have been annual increases in enrollment for technical classes at our school. This increased enrollment triggered by the team has allowed for more diverse technical courses. Most recently our school has begun to offer “High Skills Major”, an interdisciplinary program spanning the areas of technical education. It is being tailored around FIRST Robotics, exposing the students to core FIRST goals and values. These courses will be supplemented by guest lecturers from GM.
We have made an enormous impact on the lives our team’s students. Our students have improved their grades, and many have been given motivation to finish high school that they would not otherwise have had. Each day after school students have taken the opportunity to work with their Big Simbots on their school work. Our alumni have been very successful, with over 85% pursuing post secondary education, and 80% of those focusing on science and technology. We have created a team handbook imparting the culture of the team. We have made this handbook available to other FIRST teams, to help them navigate their own roadmap to success.
An example of rookie success; Team 1114 & mentee Team 2056 after winning the Toronto Regional. Team 2056 is the first rookie team to win 2 regionals in one season.
On our road to culture change, we have reached out to our local community. The team does FIRST demonstrations to the community year-round. This past year, demos took place at GM, the local mall, 4 elementary schools, and for various Scout and Guide troops, as well as a unique outreach effort. We hosted a technology camp, using Vex robots to teach grade 7 and 8’s about engineering. The classes were taught by 1114 students, applying the lessons learned from their mentors. We give back to our community by working with Community Care to organize food drives for the needy of St. Catharines. Through our outreach efforts within our community, the team has garnered considerable recognition from the local media and politicians.
1114 remains dedicated to helping the FIRST community. We have created a series of 7 seminars that have been published online for teams to learn more about various aspects of FIRST. We have created a picture database of various historical FIRST mechanisms to inspire. Our mentors have presented these seminars at the FIRST Robotics Conference since 2005. For the past 4 years, we have made a scouting database available to teams, and the 2007 version was downloaded over 800 times. Our team supports many FIRST events, most prominently the Waterloo Regional where 3 of our mentors are on the Planning Committee.
Our contributions to the FIRST community are not limited to FRC. Since 2005 we have run a very successful FLL program in our region, with 22 teams at the FLL Niagara Regional. Of these 22 teams, 18 were founded by 1114, with 2 mentored by students on our team. We are active in FTC, having 2 mentors on the planning committee for the FTC Provincial Championship, and are members of FTC Game Design Committee. In the past 2 years, we have started and mentored 4 FTC teams.
An innovative way to spread FIRST; Team 1114 members and FIRST Chairman John Abele after using Vex robots to teach FIRST values to corporate executives.
In June of 2007, 1114 participated in and lead an innovative event to spread FIRST and teach gracious professionalism to a group of business executives. We were invited to the Kingbridge Centre, a conferencing centre owned by FIRST Chairman, John Abele. For this event, our team helped design and run a Vex tournament for the executives from Maple Leaf Foods (MLF), teaching them the value of gracious professionalism and co-operation. The MLF group was split into teams of 6, competing against each other using Vex robots. Of course, there was a catch; the game was designed such that for a team to win, they had work with their partners and opponents. Because of the co-operative scoring system teams learned in order to excel they had to raise the bar and exceed their opponents, as opposed to trying to drag them down. In addition, the co-operative spirit shown during matches translated into gracious professionalism off the field, with teams helping each other scout and even cheering each other on. In just 3 days these executives were able to capture the key values of FIRST. Throughout the competition the 1114 students acted as mentors to the MLF teams. We were constantly approached for both strategic and technical advice. On the final day, a debriefing session was held for all MLF staff where we explained why this game worked as it did and captured the lessons learned. The team also demonstrated the FRC and FTC robots, making sure that everyone at the conferencing centre was able to hear our message.
Throughout this journey, Team 1114 has created a culture change across many communities, while developing a roadmap to aid other teams. Change cannot be created alone, but it can be initiated. Just as we are inspired by our mentors and role model teams, we work tirelessly to inspire others to follow in our footsteps. Together we truly can achieve our goal, “transform the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honour for science and technology”.
Copyright © 2008 Simbotics. All rights reserved.
