Dear Parents,
I want to sincerely thank you for your interest in the Flowing Wells Robotics Team. I am pleased to know that you are supporting the future generations through science and technology. I have a unique interest in the success of the students here at Flowing Wells and I strive to continually make this program better year after year. In this letter, I hope to reveal some of the amazing skills that your child will learn to better prepare him or her for the future of tomorrow.
The Flowing Wells Robotics Team will begin the year doing extensive training and outreach on the Lego Mindstorms NXT kits. These are robotics “toys” that are more used as tools to engage kids in science and engineering. We hope to teach various mechanics and programming strategies to elementary school students. For the past five years we have not been committed to outreach. One of the ways parents could support the club this year is by providing transportation for your student to volunteer at one of the elementary schools. The time commitment is approximately an hour or two per session which will give the younger students time to build, program, and use the robot for a game or activity.
I am anticipating the outreach activities to start near September and finish in October. The next two months would be great for training the students for the build season, the following year. This would entail longer meetings with specific learning objectives. To name a few: mechanical design, electrical wiring, programming, web design, shop safety, and many other topics. My goal for the off season is to provide a basis for problem solving skills and to teach good work ethics.
The build season begins on January 8, 2011 and ends approximately on February 22, 2011. Through these three months the students will rigorously work to build a fully functional robot. Statistically from last year, the four hardest working students contributed nearly 80 hours during this 8 week period. This was just an estimate, but it shows how hard work and commitment can accomplish something so amazing. Please join me in this effort, to equip students with problem solving skills that are relevant to the future. During this time parents have contributed by: bringing meals for the team, allowing the team to borrow tools, and even mentoring. I would like to welcome any support that you have to offer, even if it is just allowing your teen to be a part of our program.
I look forward to mentoring your team member this school year. This is my sixth year being involved in the FIRST Robotics program and this year I hope to take the team all the way to nationals. I would also love to start several smaller Lego Robotics clubs at the elementary and junior high schools. If you are interested in support or mentoring, please let me know, and I would gladly show you how you can help.
Go Robo Knights!
Michael Palmer