What is Outreach?
Being an ambassador for FIRST means doing everything that you can to help the growth and sustainability of FIRST teams and programs.
Steelhead's Outreach has won several awards including a nomination for the Motivate Award in the 2017 Houston World Championship (see Team Members and Mentors). In this section we outline what we do for our outreach and why we do it. For more details, our 2016-17 outreach notebook is available here.
Steelhead's Outreach has won several awards including a nomination for the Motivate Award in the 2017 Houston World Championship (see Team Members and Mentors). In this section we outline what we do for our outreach and why we do it. For more details, our 2016-17 outreach notebook is available here.
Our OutreachWe look at outreach in several dimensions, but at the core of each of our projects, we believe that every student in the Columbia River Gorge (and everywhere) should be able to be on a FIRST Team. We try to eliminate every barrier that we can.
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STEM Fair
One of our biggest outreach events of the year is the STEM Fair. We organized the closure of two blocks on Oak Street downtown Hood River. We invited local Engineering Firms like, Google, MW Tech to display their products, and to inform the public about what they really do. Some of the high school teachers created fun and intriguing family friendly activities that were enjoyed throughout the fair.The Research, Genetics, and Bioethics (RGB) class came to show off what they do at the high school.We raffled off swag from local businesses, and had a t-shirt cannon to distribute STEM fair shirts that we designed.There were many kids and parents that came to the fair and many interested children said they would look for the robotics classes in the fall.
Gorge FAB Bus
The Gorge FAB Bus is a STEM class on wheels. Last year our team fundraised and built the Gorge FAB Bus. This bus includes laser printers, FLL game field, Spheros, etc. This year the bus is at a new place every week. It is increasingly difficult for school districts to fund STEM education that integrates modern technology. Putting it on wheels allows one machine to serve hundreds of students. In addition, we will be teaching workshops to entire classes, removing the need for a signup sheet. This means we will be reaching a student population with a demographic that is proportional to the reality of our community.
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Chenoweth Open House
We manned a booth the Chenoweth open house in Mrs. Bergeman’s 5th grade classroom, our goal was to increase the number of students and parent volunteers signed up for FIRST Lego League. About 100 people attended this back to school event event and were walking through classrooms. There are now 18 students making up 2 FIRST Lego League teams for the 2016-17 season.
Mid Valley Art Week Assembly
We presented to Mid Valley Elementary School (about 300 students) as a part of their “Art Week” in collaboration with team Men In Green 787. Our goal was to get kids excited about robots and to recognize their FIRST Lego League team for the award they won that year (2015-16).This year (2016-17), there are three FIRST Lego League teams at Mid Valley which is a huge increase from a single team last year. When Elizabeth asked who wanted to do robotics in high school, virtually everyone raised their hands!
Mid Valley Parent Night
We were invited back to Mid Valley for their parent night, Elizabeth and Margaret went to teach kids about FIRST Lego League and recruit parent volunteers. We handed out about one hundred flyers and talked to about 45 people. We have no way to measure the success of this specific event, but this year (2016-17) there are two new teams at Mid Valley, making the grand total 3 teams.
Mid Valley Robotics Wizard
Taught kids at Mid Valley Elementary how to program and introduced them to robotics.We had many kids say they were interested in doing robotics in middle school. We went to three classes that each had 25-30 kids so all together we talked to about 85 kids. These kids will be in 5th grade next year and go to middle school, where they can be a part of robotics classes and programs. We hope that these kids will become a part of the program so that next year there will be more teams then there were this year.
Westside Game Night
Westside has a fun family event with carnival games and prizes. We had a table at the event with flyers and laptops at the ready for people to sign up. A lot of kids were super excited to join the new FLL program!! We got 9 kids to sign up and 4 new coaches. This will be great for the next season because the FLL program relies off of parent volunteers. Also, the kids signed up might get their friends to join, so a lot of new FLL teams will be started.
Westside Student Led Confrences
We set up a table at Westside student led conferences to recruit more parent volunteers and to get more kids to sign up. We got another 5 people to join robotics. Last time we came to Westside, we got 9 new members, so we are up to 14 members now. We expect to form at least 4 teams; we’ll need parent help to keep these teams going. We also talked to Sally Anderson, the FLL coordinator about what else we can do to help their teams get started.
Hood River Middle School 8th Grade Advanced Math Class Presentation
The advanced math class from Hood River Middle School came to the high school to learn more about the engineering program here. They will be freshmen in the 2016-17 school year. Our goal is to convince these 8th graders (especially the girls) to sign up for the Robotics 1 class for their freshman year. We are trying to increase the ratio of girls/boys in our program.This year (2016-17) there are two full classes of Robotics 1 meaning over 50 freshman signed up for the class.
Wy’East Forecasting Assembly
At the end of the school year, Wy’East Middle School has a forecasting assembly, and programs from the high school are invited to present about their subject area and the classes they offer. We presented for the Engineering department at the high school with an emphasis on Robotics 1 (the FTC class period for freshmen). Our goal was to increase the number of Freshmen from Wy’East in the Robotics 1 class for the 2016-17 school year. This year there are over 50 freshmen in Robotics 1 forming five FTC teams.