Strategy and Plan

Implementation Plan & Schedule 2015-2016

Prepared By: L. Richardson, Team 4188 Coach

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Executive Summary

Co-curricular science and engineering programming is an educator implemented workforce development activity where the product for involved students is both academic and career exploration driven. Student members of the Columbus Robotics Alliance are part of a co- curricular program. The experiences gained from being part of a team that solves real world problems offers increased knowledge and confidence related to choosing a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) based career path. Engineering and science best practices are included in the team interactions with input from professional scientists and engineers leading to technical project experience usually reserved for new employees coming out of an advanced college degree instead of current high school students. Although not all Columbus Robotics Alliance students end up in STEM fields, many do. For instance, over 10% of all undergraduates attending MIT from the state of Georgia have come from this program over the last decade. There will be training sessions available to students on how to complete college scholarship and college admissions applications maximizing their involvement in this organization. This document will outline the plan to implement this co-curricular program for 2015-2016.

Goals from Previous Year

 Implement the Destination Einstein program  Attend Two Regional Events

Goals for Current Year

Expand the Destination Einstein program The full practice field built in the gym wing of Marshall Middle School will be made available to FRC teams from across Georgia, specifically south of Atlanta. The interior space will be upgraded to show sponsorships, and display Columbus Space Program logos and information. Pit spaces will be defined with power access and boundaries for the field and pit area to enforce safety. Exterior signs will be used for event days both outside of the facility and coming into the facility. The goal for this academic year is to host 2 scrimmage events and also make the facility available during the build weeks in February 2016.

Attend Two District Events, One Regional Event, and Qualify for State and World Championships The Georgia FIRST organization has moved to the District model for competition, so our team will go to two district competitions. If our team qualifies, we will also attend the State Championship event on campus at the University of Georgia. If funding allows, we can attend an additional regional event in Huntsville, AL giving us one more chance at qualifying for the World Championships in St. Louis. This goal also includes an expansion of our team in terms of student team members and mentors with the end result being a competitive robot that will represent us well in these competitions with a good chance of going to the next level of competition.

Expand our Outreach Program In the past few years, very few or no elementary / middle schools have had competitive robotics teams. Our team will actively sponsor at least two new teams as they prepare for the regional FLL Robotics tournament. Our team will work with Columbus MakesIT to sponsor the local regional FLL tournament on November 21 at CSU. We will also sponsor the FLL super-regional event at CSU on January 23rd, 2016.

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Schedule

June 27th, 2015 Albany, GA Scrimmage

September 14th, 2015 Announce initial pre-season roster [33 students] September 17th, 2016 Parent and Mentor meeting at MMS

October 11th, 2015 Pre-season Scrimmage (GRITS) at Walton High School October 24th, 2015 Chattanooga, TN Off-season competition

November 21st, 2015 Columbus State University FLL Tournament (need volunteers)

December 2015 Prepare DE field for the new season (remove old game elements)

January 9th, 2016 FIRST Robotics 2016 Season Kickoff on campus at Georgia Tech. The new game for this year will be revealed and the 6 week build season begins.

January 31st through February 23rd, 2016 DE field open to any team in Georgia with specific invitations to south Georgia teams to practice before the end of the build season.

February 23rd, 2015 Bag & Tag event. End of the build season where the robot will be sealed and not opened until the first regional competition.

Week 2 District Event, March 10-12, 2016: Columbus, GA – compete at this local event held in the Civic Center, we need volunteers to run this 44 team event with the help of Columbus MakesIT

Week 3 District Event, March 17-19, 2016: Albany, GA – drive and scout team may volunteer at this competition to learn about other teams and strategies, not planning on competing, may need parent volunteers to travel

Week 4 Regional Event, March 23-26, 2016: Huntsville, AL – if funds allow, we can compete at this first year event. Parent volunteers would be needed for transportation or the team splits the cost for a bus.

Week 6 District Event, April 8-10, 2016: Kennesaw, GA – compete at this event as our 2nd district event to hopefully qualify for the State Championships. Parent volunteers would be needed for transportation or the team splits the cost for a bus.

Week 7 State Championships, April 15-17, 2016: Athens, GA – if we qualify, our team will compete against the best teams in the state for an invitation to the World Championships. Parent volunteers would be needed for transportation or the team splits the cost for a bus.

Week 9 World Championships, April 28-30, 2016: St. Louis, MO – if we qualify, our team would compete against the best robots in the world in St. Louis. Travel funds would need to be raised to help cover student costs.

The family costs for travel that are budgeted in the Fall of 2015 will not include the costs for traveling to Athens or St. Louis. These funds will either have to be raised or split among the team.

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Besides the full engineering lifecycle experience provided by the FIRST Robotics competition, our team members have opportunities to engage in other science and engineering projects.

DREAMS Doing Research at Extreme Altitudes by Motivated Students. This program has been launching student payloads to the edge of space up to 120,000 feet since 2007. Two flights of the high altitude science platform are included in the overall budget. These flights serve as off-season training activities, science research opportunities, and also sponsor recognition with edge of space imaging. Support for these two flights is budgeted at $3500.

FluxDemon CubeSat Last year, a team of students working with mentors proposed a satellite mission to NASA. It was not selected but was recognized as sufficient merit to fly. It needed more development and a better review process for the next proposal. Total budget to build the Cubesat including the development of a payload to fly on the DREAMS missions is $8000. If selected, this would be the first Georgia group selected by NASA to fly a Cubesat in orbit and the 2nd high school ever selected.

InvenTeam On two previous occasions, student groups from Columbus have been selected to develop an invention and be funded by the Lemelson-MIT foundation. To propose an idea, some development needs to be done and this has a budget of $3500. If selected, the team would receive up to an additional $10,000 from the foundation.

Budget

Any research and development project requires a budget of both time and financial costs. The financial cost of the Columbus Robotics Alliance are detailed here.

The cost for attending two district events, one regional, the state championships plus the World Championships is $57,500. A scaled back event budget with only the district and state events would be $21,000 as a minimum.

Two districts + regional + State Full Program with Chairmans Non-robot total $10,500 Middle School Robotics curriculum Entry fees $19,000 FLL team sponsorships Robot (w/wish list) $28,000 Open house events Support of Columbus District Event TOTAL BUDGET $57,500 $145,000

Chairman Award

FIRST Robotics recognizes teams that do work to promote the spirit of the competition through STEM based outreach events. Additional budgets have been developed to include sponsoring summer workshops for teachers and students as well as events during the year. These budgets depend on reaching the goals of the robotics budget. Current plans include an additional support budget of $31,500 to include 5-10 middle schools from Muscogee County and possibly some upper elementary schools for Summer 2016. This includes teacher workshops with supplied Mindstorm education kits to build robots with follow-up workshops and teacher stipends for sponsoring FLL teams.

At least two upper elementary FLL competition robotics teams will be sponsored by the Columbus Space Program – St. Elmo and Wesley Heights Elementary. Cost of registration fees and other costs will be raised or supported as needed. Team members will mentor these teams with meetings on Saturdays at Marshall Middle School and possibly during the week. Team members will also volunteer to run the regional FLL event at CSU on November 21st, 2015 as well as the super regional event on January 23rd at CSU.

The Muscogee County School District is looking for innovative educational strategies to engage students at all schools, and robots offer a lot of educational value. The Columbus Space Program will work to prepare research and information to allow the Superintendent and School Board to make informed decisions about bringing STEM experiences to students across the district.

Another open project of the Columbus Space Program is to get more exposure to the “sport” of robotics with TV coverage of actual events. With the possible addition of a Columbus Civic Center District event, local coverage is a possibility and will be pursued.

Sponsorships & Funding

The Columbus Robotics Alliance operates within the activity accounts at Columbus High School which is a 501(c)(3) organization so sponsorships can be counted as tax deductible donations.

Student families are asked to fund the non-robotics costs to include travel, T-shirts, and meals at meetings and practices although sponsorships are possible for these as well. Without snacks, drinks, and meals at practices, the total comes has historically been $250 per student to be paid to the Booster Club. Assistance is available for families who qualify for reduced lunch program or who are in need. $250 is a tentative amount based on previous years budgets and may change after parent boosters meet.

Below is a report on our support from last year. This was our greatest year of funding. However, our expanded goals will require more support to accomplish our lofty goals.

2015 sponsors include: UTC $10,000 LM $4,500 US Army $5,900 AFLAC $5,200 Parents $5,000 Community Donors $4,600 BAH $4,000 WIT $3,500 CharBroil material and production of parts valued at $3000 Mead $2,750 KIA $2,000 Columbus Water Works $1300 TSYS $1,000 Oneda $1,000 SWE $1,000 AUVSI $500 MSC $500

CASH Donations $55,750

Other possible donors: DRS ATK Textron Boeing Northrup Grumman SAIC CyPhy General Dynamics BAE IBM GA Power MediaCom Heckler & Koch Swift Spinning Panasonic McCauley International Paper Cott AFS America Heatcraft Stepan Kemira Kodak ICForm NCR Remitco ACWhite Robinson Paving Besides corporate donors, grants are another option for funding especially for curriculum related Chairman activities. These will require approval by the school district and selection by the sponsors of those grants in very competitive processes.

COMPETITIONS WHEN & WHERE

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