2010 Chairman's Award Submission

Who We Are
Our team asks one question of ourselves: "how can we get someone else interested in math, science, and engineering?" Individually, we are students, mentors, and sponsors. We are thinkers, builders, and designers. Collectively, the Broncobots are one team that has lassoed the community and led them to the FIRST rodeo.

Impact on Students, School Curriculum, Community
Since Team 1987's inception, FIRST has inspired our fourteen graduates. Twelve of the fourteen are engineering majors and have received scholarships totaling over $29,000. Current high school members are excelling in math, science, computer technology, and industrial arts: four team members received Engineering and Industrial Arts Awards, including the only girl to receive the prestigious award in 2008. Students work hard to maintain a school-robotics balance and it shows: fourteen Broncobots were inducted into the National Honor Society chapter. Team members currently have jobs with local high tech firms thanks to their robotics experiences. Additionally, the team inspired the creation of a robotics club at a local middle school.

Role Model Characteristics
Gracious professionalism, community involvement, and innovation are the foundation of Team 1987's success. Our mission has always been to share FIRST. One student moved to our school district to be part of the Broncobots because we are devoted to education, innovation, engineering, and inspiration. As FIRST participants, we are dedicated to building the future through the recognition and advocacy of science, technology, math, and engineering. By creating strong partnerships with mentors, teachers, and sponsors, we encourage communication and leadership as crucial parts of team success. Our team focuses foremost on the goal of FIRST.

At the 2008 inaugural off-season CowTown ThrowDown event, sponsored by Team 1730 and Cerner, our team exhibited gracious professionalism in an unprecedented way. After learning that one team would not be chosen to compete in the finals, we stepped down from our fifth qualifying position. This team was then selected by what turned out to be the winning alliance, helping to reinforce their robotics program. Again in 2009, our team members, mentors, and alumni were volunteers and coordinators at the event. Two student members spent until midnight the eve of competition working with the sponsors on a defective wireless control system. After hours of troubleshooting, they instituted a complex but workable solution. During competition, besides being drivers, these two helped maintain the system network. Our gracious professionalism and hard work helped make Kansas City's second off-season event a success.

During the 2009 season, along with Team 1730, we mentored a local urban-core team, Team 2894, from the Afrikan Centered Education Collegium Campus (ACE). The hard work paid off when they earned a Rookie Inspiration Award. Equally supportive, Team 2894 then loaned us parts for the 2009 Championship and worked with us at our camps. This year, the Broncobots increased our involvement with ACE by recruiting more mentors, increasing their total from one to seven full-time mentors. We introduced them to business contacts, worked with their sub-teams, and helped with presentations.

We appreciate the support from other FIRST teams and we strive to give back more than we receive. By visiting the employers of our mentors, we recruited new mentors for other teams. Over the past three years, we helped Honeywell recruit over 60 mentors for 25 teams. We have also shown current sponsors how to get more involved: Honeywell, for example, donated $55,000 to existing teams in 2009 and $44,000 to the Greater Kansas City Regional in 2009 and 2010. Thanks in part to our presentations, Honeywell now has 25-plus volunteers working at the Regional.

Communication and Partnerships within the Team and Community
Communication and partnerships between the community and Team 1987 are important aspects on which we focus. Because unity is such a key part of success, communication between our team, our mentors, other teams, sponsors, and the community as a whole has been crucial.

The three teams in our city have come together (despite extreme historic athletic competition) by forming a group called the Lee's Summit R-7 Robotics Alliance. Its goal is to maintain a structured union among the three Lee's Summit robotics teams to ensure sustainability and co-opertition. The Alliance works to create, promote, and support a marketing position and plan that effectively communicates the purposes, opportunities, and results of FIRST and the teams. Visiting schools, the Alliance teaches students the meaning of gracious professionalism and the importance of engineering and technology in their high school career paths. A relationship with the local newspaper allows the Alliance to publish weekly articles following FIRST, local events, and teams' progress. When it comes to spreading the word to the community, the Lee's Summit R-7 Alliance has already had a great impact.

The Broncobots support our community through volunteer work and coordination of special projects. Since 2008, we have provided over 900 pounds of food to our local food pantry, volunteered at Special Olympics, and supported needy families during the holidays with food, home supplies, and gifts. We reached beyond our community in 2010 sending handmade cards and care packages to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and soldiers serving over-seas.

Closer to home, our team supports the Kansas City FIRST community by volunteering rather than competing at our own regional. In three years, we helped recruit many new volunteers and hosted countless guests at the regional. We have volunteered as Robot Inspectors, Judges, Announcers, Referees, Score Keepers, and we work in the machine shop and hold other key positions. Besides the local regional, our team members and mentors worked at other regionals, the Championship, and at FLL Rumbles and competitions.

Our team feels fortunate to have great sponsors, and one element we concentrate on is treating every sponsor graciously. We give each sponsor the same benefits, no matter the contribution. Each is provided a spot on our website, banners, publications, and robot. We do not use a ranking system based on dollar value; for us, giving time and attention to FIRST Robotics is deserving of praise and gratitude. Because of this, our partnerships with sponsors have remained strong over four years. They know what we have done with their help and they see our appreciation in all that we do. Some of our sponsors, like Kastle Grinding, R&D Leverage, and Honeywell, also donate time, money, and support to our mentored team, Team 2894.

Spreading the FIRST Message
Innovation and inspiration have been our key factors in spreading the FIRST message. Over four seasons, the Broncobots have sent 1,100 letters to 15 government officials and federal offices, including two presidents, senators, representatives, and the mayor. Responses have been encouraging and this year, we went further by mailing letters to school board members inviting them to be guests at our build site and the KC Regional.

The Broncobots' website has been essential in team outreach and communication. Our blog and website are updated multiple times each week. We create weekly YouTube videos to share progress and these have been viewed over 17,000 times. Also on our website, we offer team-created resources for "How To" projects and we share examples of our outreach programs.

In 2009, the Broncobots debuted a "Flat Mammoth" program. We combined the classic story of Flat Stanley with the spirit of FIRST, mailing a picture of our 2008 robot, The Mammoth, around the country with FIRST brochures and team-created packets filled with information on engineering. While Flat Mammoth traveled to the Missouri House of Representatives, Honduras, Japan, and Guam, we spread the FIRST word in our own community by talking to everyone who would listen.

In just the last year, we presented or displayed at the Lee's Summit Economic Development Council, freshman orientation days, school board meetings, the State Fair, Honeywell, Cerner, Kokam America, Grainger, the Engineering and Science Summer Institute at Kansas State, StarBase, a key member of the Kauffman Foundation, the Optimist Club, the Kansas City Robotics Society's RoboFest, and countless schools and businesses.

Another venture is our yearly, made-for-TV movie, The Broncobots Blast, covering the FIRST program and our build season. The series airs on the city cable channel and we are the first local team to accomplish outreach in this form. Additionally, we have been featured innumerable times in the media: three local newspapers, local television, sponsor newsletters, and the 2008 book, FIRST Robots: Rack N Roll.

We have held weeklong robotic summer camps for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, mostly from Lee's Summit elementary schools but with some coming from 30 miles away. Partnering with 1730, we work together to create highly successful summer programs. The two teams share student-designed games, fields, and volunteers. Broncobot volunteers this year constructed a large part of the playing fields and created camper newsletters and slideshows. At the camps, each team creates their own websites, flyers, buttons, and a Vex robot, mimicking the FRC. We work hard to transfer the excitement of FIRST to hundreds of enthusiastic students.

Why We're Here
Our team understands that FIRST is not just about building a robot. Our focus is and has always been on encouraging and spreading engineering while demonstrating all the other benefits of the FIRST program. FIRST has challenged us to make an impact on our team members, our schools, and our communities. In our first year, we experienced the wild FIRST passion. In the three years since, Team 1987 has unleashed the FIRST stallion and created an unstoppable force.