Community

This page describes how the Discobots has influenced the community by holding various events.

Parent's Night

In order to get the community involved in FIRST, the team members organized a parent’s night. This event promoted FIRST and helped the parents gain a better understanding of what the club in about. The team gave a presentation about the FIRST organization, demonstrated the 2009 FRC robot, and gave out information about FIRST scholarships. We received many comment from parents that night who were very proud of our hard work, persistence, and intelligence in making robots. They were delighted to see that our club, through the influence of FIRST was able to cultivate a thirst for science, engineering and technology.

Holding Workshops

In addition to FLL workshops, we have held workshops for FRC Teams. We held an FRC Rookie Training Workshop to help new teams and teach them things that we learned during our rookie year to ensure a smoother rookie year than ours. Also, it included information about required things such as how to pick a team name, color, and theme. Additionally, we held a CAD Seminar, during which we taught students and mentors how to design using the computer aided design software Solid Works. We also held a seminar to show teams how to integrate Lab view and the new C-RIO.

Robotics Community

Not only are we committed to spreading the inspiration of robotics, but we also contribute to the existing robotics community. In order to fill the need for a local robotics competition that would help teams prepare for FRC, we established and hosted the Houston VEX Regional Competition. In addition to recognizing and filling this need, we also saw a need to centralize team resources. In response, we started and continue to manage TXFIRST.org, the main website for Texas robotics. Through this website, we provide information and assistance to teams across the state. We also run MentorSearch.us, which aims to link teams with invaluable mentors, resources, and guidance.

FLL Teams

In the summer of 2008, we established FIRST LEGO League Teams at The Rice School and Lanier Middle School and are mentoring these teams throughout the FLL season. Additionally, we began mentoring the St. John's School FLL team, a second year team, in fall of 2008. Although this team was already established, we used our robotics experience to help guide them through this season. We have also held workshops to help train FLL teams. Over forty mentors and students attended one such workshop at the University of Houston. We plan to continue and expand our FLL mentoring efforts in hopes of changing students' perception of science and technology and inspiring them to pursue careers in science and technology.

Texas Shootout Off-Season

In August of 2009, the DiscoBots (FRC 2587) helped establish the Texas Shootout Off-Season event at the Woodlands High School. Members of the DiscoBots volunteered as referees, field managers, announcers and field setup. The first annual Texas Shootout was a big success and will become a seasonal Texas robotics event. The off season event will promote FIRST and provide an opportunity for Texas teams to improve. The Discobots will continue to support the Texas Off-Season Competition as we believe it is perfect example of promoting the FIRST spirit of involving in Robotics community.

FLL Competition

In Fall of 2009, the Discobots volunteered in a FLL competition, which is robotics competition for elementary and middle school students. This gave the team opportunity to inspire younger generations and show them how their hard work can pay off. Team members took on different roles such as scoring, setting the field and judging the game. During the competition, the team brought out the field, tools parts and robot, and performed some demonstrations for the children. We received a lot of interest and felt like we were able to make a positive impression on the younger teams. As “older siblings in the FIRST family, we were excited about being able to help out our “younger siblings” and this felt like we fulfilled the spirit of FIRST.