Your Team Number: 492
Team Name, Corporate / University Sponsors: Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium & The International School

Briefly describe the impact of the FIRST program on team participants. The International School (IS) is a small alternative liberal arts high school without electives such as shop or computer courses. As a result, students missed these opportunities until the Titan Robotics Club (TRC) was founded in 2000. The TRC not only allows students to gain hands-on experience with engineering, join with professional engineers, and understand the joy of science and technology, but the TRC strives to teach business and life skills to compliment those of science and engineering.

Examples of role model characteristics for other teams to emulate. The TRC leads Washington’s FIRST community by example, holding events such as open programming meetings, a remote kick-off event with group strategy activities starting teams off well, and a Pre-Ship event. The TRC’s goal to increase the performance of Washington state teams in order to create a more competitive environment, more apt to inspire members to adopt the FIRST goal, has lead to the release of the TRC’s php based scouting program, robot code, and a PNW programmer’s mailing list.

Describe the impact of the FIRST program on your team and community. FIRST is the catalyst that started the TRC, and has fueled the expansion of the club into endeavors such as mentoring multiple FLL teams, building an underwater ROV, and participating in local robotics competitions such as the SRS Robothon. The club’s outreach includes demonstrations at movie theaters and malls, and to groups such as developmentally disabled Boy Scouts. These activities have led to coverage of the club’s activities in local newspapers and a national magazine. Teams innovative methods to spread the FIRST message. In the past year, the TRC has continued its letter writing campaign sending 900 letters to targeted families and businesses, been recognized in two local newspapers, presented robots to a developmentally disabled boy scouts group, and launched plans to donate 50 poof balls to a local children’s organization. Countless children have been introduced to robotics at malls, movie theatres and our open preship events. The goal is to spark an interest in FIRST ideals and that is what we are doing.

Describe the strength of your partnership. The TRC is partnered with the school community and several local businesses that share our vision of a future where scientists and engineers are celebrated. Microvision, where our engineering mentors work, is the beneficiary of an internship program that has hired TRC alumni. Other local companies receive recognition on our website, t-shirts, and robot for their contributions to the TRC’s mission. Students and mentors learn together through the challenges of the FIRST Robotics Competition. Teams communication methods and results. Our award winning website informs members and the community about FIRST, meeting dates, and our progress through visual media. Also, the TRC uses 13 e-mail lists to communicate between leaders, PNW FIRST programmers, FLL members, supporters and others, all archived to learn and reduce mistakes. Instated 1 ½ years ago, handling 950 e-mails a year, this system allows club members to get e-mails pertinent to their duties thereby encouraging discussion, minimizing distractions, and miscommunication. Other matters of interest to the FIRST judges, if any. The International School has no high school sports teams; instead students participate in sports through the “normal” high school they would have gone to. The TRC, with its yearly participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition, is becoming the school’s team - a common cause for the students to rally behind and be proud of. This year membership in the club has doubled from 24 members to about 50 and more then 1 out of 5 high school students at International School are in the TRC. Images: Based at the International School, a small public alternative high school in the Bellevue School District in Washington State, the Titan Robotics Club provides important opportunities for the school’s 464 middle and high school students. The school’s small size and focused curriculum means that electives like metal shop and programming are not available. The Titan Robotics Club not only provides these opportunities to interested students, but also generates more interest for studying and learning the art and science of engineering through its involvement in exciting robotics competitions like FIRST. Founded in spring of 2000 as the 4th team in Washington, The Titan Robotics Club (TRC) has grown to be the foremost leader in the state and the region. During the club’s first three years, the TRC built up its standing by developing roots to grow upon such as an FLL program, dedicated mentors, and an award winning website. Our main mission is to excite and motivate students to pursue careers in science, engineering, and technology, and to develop leadership, business, and life skills. During the last two years, in particular, the Titan Robotics Club has matured and spread its expertise and excitement throughout the Washington State community. The Titan Robotics Club’s leadership in the local FIRST community has lead to events such as a state-wide remote Kick-off and Preship events in 2004 and 2005. Our team has also hosted meetings in order to expand all Washington teams’ knowledge and expertise. These sessions included five C programming lessons, explanations of our six wheel drive train, robot code, and the release of our 2005 php based scouting program. The TRC has also checked in on a rookie team in the state, Team 1889, donating our kitbot to their team and sending team members to their meetings throughout the build session. We have also developed a partnership with Team 949 by donating aluminum and our shop facilities to them to use. We hope to be able to further develop our relationship with these and other Washington teams in the future. The TRC further encouraged a friendly competitive spirit for all state teams by planning the 2006 Kick-off event, asking a FIRST mentor to build the field for the event, enlisting the sponsorship of DeVry University as a partner for 2006 and years to come, and planning group discussions of strategy for this year’s game. Strategy discussion was encouraged at the Kick-Off Event through smaller group discussions between teams. Finally, on February 18, 2006, seven Washington State teams attended our Preship Event for the sole purpose of encouraging the implementation of driver practice in a full match environment, which is also a key part of the FIRST competition. The TRC was pleased by this year’s results and the extent our team’s impact on Washington State’s FIRST community. All seven robots had six wheel drive systems modelled after our robot and after the event on February 18th 2006, mentor Rick Tyler of team 1294 wrote on a post on Chief Delphi, that “TRC shares everything with everyone in the PNW area – they are a class act”. We are honored by this recognition and feel that the TRC has made major progress towards achieving our mission for Washington State to create more interest in FIRST and its goals. In addition to the difference that the TRC has made in the FIRST community, the TRC continues to introduce community members to science, engineering and technology. For example, the TRC has made presentations and shown their robot to a developmentally disabled Boy Scouts group, shoppers at a local mall, those at a local movie theatre showing the movie Robots, and to our school on Back to School day. We also presented our robot at Mindcamp held in Seattle, two preship events open to the public, and at the Boys’ and Girls’ club. Our accomplishments were noted in an article in the Bellevue Reporter and The Eastside Journal. We are proud of the diverseness of our outreach, reaching children, the disabled, students and engineers. In addition, the TRC hopes to extend its reach by donating its poof balls (after the FIRST competition) to one of several children’s charities such as Childhaven, or Hopelink. We have given students throughout the Puget Sound Community the option to join our club and have acquired members from four different high schools due to our open membership policy. These high schools include: Sammamish, Bellevue, Redmond, and Robinswood High Schools. In addition to these members from different schools, the TRC has started an FLL program at our middle school, which is closely tied to our FRC program. The bond between these two aspects of the TRC has grown through the past four years to include high school mentors, who mentor our two FLL teams. Two high school TRC members were recognized for their contribution to the Lego League by receiving the 2005 Washington State “Young Mentor Award”. At the end of the year our FLL mentors are encouraged to invite dedicated 8th grade FLL members to join the FRC, promoting the excitement and allure of the FRC to the FLL members. As the TRC roster is established, the TRC holds sessions to pass knowledge of the club to the new participants, and more importantly hold “get togethers” in order to strengthen the bonds between members before the season is started. For instance, this year the FRC portion of the TRC with its 49 members, traveled to a neighborhood restaurant to strengthen the ties between members and eliminate age differences, forcing the club to operate as one entity and not divided by school year or race. The TRC has worked hard to unite the club and to make a bond throughout the whole year. The TRC is one of the only clubs in Washington State to have a year round program which meets at least once every two weeks throughout the whole year. This allows the TRC to branch off into activities such as participation in the SRS mini-sumo competition, the building of a robotic arm, and the undertaking of constructing a robot which can dive to the bottom of Lake Washington. These activities are all sparked by the club’s “Hack Sessions” occurring over the summer where members undertake club related projects of their choosing. In past summers, flamethrowers, full sized summos and our ROV have been built. It is a chance for members to ask mentors to teach them how to undertake projects related to science, engineering and technology, but sometimes unrelated to FIRST. This is also when mentors lead “classes” on the basics of programming, Autodesk Inventor, and 3DS max. Branching off gives members a break from the high speed world of robotics during build season to a more relaxed and personal environment. During time off is also when planning and the passing of the torch to the new leadership begins. Fundraising also begins, this year with courting DeVry University, applying for grants, and launching a letter writing campaigned with a staggering 25% response rate. We also were lucky enough to impress an Oregon NASA Space Consortium representative enough at the PNW regional in 2005 to acquire a $5000 NASA grant. We also were supported this year more then ever by our school with a $6500 donation from our school’s As Student Body and Parent Teacher Student Association. Other then conquering the obstacle of acquiring the funds to compete in competition, the Titan Robotics Club has served as an exemplary model for team involvement in a community and representation of our school’s composition. The club has more than doubled in the past season, from 24 members in 2004/2005 to our current base of 49 members of which 40% are female. Our TRC members make-up 20% of the total high school population. Also, 78% of our team has returned from last year, which we attribute to our philosophy that every member must work on the robot through the build season. Now with 48 high school members and 12 middle school members the Titan Robotics Club is bigger than ever. The TRC has also set forth a goal to increase the performance of the all FIRST teams and to inspire greater involvement in science, engineering and technology. From the start of this FIRST season in September, the TRC has made efforts to achieve this goal. For instance, the TRC released its 2005 scouting system in order to encourage teams to emulate this resource to which we attribute our two consecutive PNW regional wins. We have given all FIRST teams the resource of a 2006 scouting program released on http://www.stampscouting.org/. STAMP (Statistical Team Analysis of Match Performance) , a statistical analysis program started by the TRC and backed by team 93 and 180, has excelled in creating a widely available, fully operational scouting system open and advertised through Chief Delphi. The TRC will continue to strive for excellence as a club and improve the Pacific Northwest and larger FIRST community by offering guidance and mentorship. We are proud of how far we come in our five years of existence, and we hope other FIRST teams can learn from our missteps and our successes. The unique opportunities provided to students, our year-round activities, and our competitive excellence year after year is turning a small alternative public school into an epicenter of inspiration in science and technology.

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