BETHANY HIGH SCHOOL NASA GRANT SUBMISSION

2015 FIRST Robotics NASA Grant Submission

Bethany High School Robotics Team
Broncho Bots Team #5550
1. Why are you considering entering a team in the 2015 FIRST Robotics Competition? What
will define success for your team?
Last spring several students approached several faculty members including myself
about the possibilities of starting a robotics club and a producing a team to
compete in the FIRST Robotics competitions the next year. Over the course of
the following months many new members joined the group and as of now the
Robotics club consists of around 15 members that consistently attend meetings.
The students are really enjoying the challenge to start something from scratch and
they love having a sense of ownership in the creation of Bethanys Robotics
Team. Bethany High School has enjoyed much success the last decade in
academics and a Robotics team will provide a way for students to take the skills
that they have learned within their classes and combine them with upper level
cognitive processes like application and creation to produce something
collaboratively with their peers. I am very interested to see the students go
through the FIRST Robotics competition process and test their critical thinking
skills. We are setting our goals high for our first year of competition, but we are
also keeping them realistic. The team is looking at this first year of competition
as a learning experience and we have set a goal of the successful completion of a
robot for the Oklahoma Regional Competition. In order to do this we will have to
achieve several smaller objectives along the way. One of the first things that we
have had success with is finding mentors and community support to help us with
our production process. The support from parents and members of the
community has been outstanding in this process so far and the student members of
the team are actively looking for new mentors and sponsors. As far as success
goes in this area, we have set a goal of five new sponsors or mentors before the
winter break to go along with the three we already have. Our team feels that these
are goals worthy enough to judge a successful starting season of FIRST Robotics
participation as well as help us gain supporters and members of the team.
Please address the following issues:
A. Explain the relationship you envision among your students, faculty, and community partners as
part of this year's FIRST Robotics Competition experience, i.e., how your team will be organized
to facilitate interaction among these groups.
B. Describe how you envision these groups working together and benefiting from their involvement
with FIRST Robotics Competition.
As stated in the above answer we are already developing and fostering
relationships within our community at Bethany. The current members of our

BETHANY HIGH SCHOOL NASA GRANT SUBMISSION

Robotics Club know the importance of outside help and fostering relationships
within the school and community. The building and fabrication of the Robot for
competition is a process that will take resources from many different areas.
Because of the need for much outside assistance and resources we have reached
out to several businesses and organizations within the Bethany community. We
have also gained the support of our Bethany administration and the Bethany
Public Schools Foundation and have applied for a grant from them as well to help
aid in the cost of the Competition. As we build these relationships, we are doing
all we can to support and work with the businesses who are able to see the
benefits of joining with us as we become a stronger organization. All of our
members are expected to volunteer and participate in community work of some
type. Our students are already planning a series of Science days in which the
elementary students can come and listen to our team talk and do demonstrations
of the robot during the building process as well as several other physics and
chemistry demonstrations. Students are learning to make presentations to
businesses and organizations to explain the importance of investing in our
program. Through these relationships, we are also working to grow student
interest in STEM careers, which have suffered in recent years in Oklahoma. Our
school hopes that with the increased awareness of employment opportunities in
STEM careers this will lead to more students exploring those interests in college.
We are aware of the dependence we have on our community for their financial
and mentorship support, therefore, we remain willing to give back to our
community every opportunity we find.
2. FIRST Robotics Competitions provide high school students with many unique
opportunities, but because of the nature of the competition, as well as the travel that can
be involved, participation in FIRST Robotics Competition can require significant
financial resources. In addition to the entrance fees, teams must budget for robot
prototyping and construction, travel to one or more events, and miscellaneous items like
team t-shirts. Please outline your anticipated budget (expenses) and how you plan to fund
your team's participation (income) this year. Please do not use a table format. Instead, use
paragraph format.
We have an expected budget of around $10,000 for our competition season. Of
this amount, we have budgeted $6000 for registration. $1000 is budgeted for
meals, team shirts, and other promotional materials/spirit items for our team. We
have budget $2000 for the robot build, prototypes, manufacturing, and extra
materials or tools. The remaining $1000 of our budget is for new resources that
will help us prepare our team members in the future and as we grow. We would
also like to use this material to offer a robotics camp for elementary aged students
during the summer as well as help with funding our Science days during this
years competition season. Our funding is being provided by grant moneys we are

BETHANY HIGH SCHOOL NASA GRANT SUBMISSION

able to secure and donations from local businesses, parents, friends and the
Bethany Public Schools Foundation. Our students have also been very busy
planning new fundraising efforts through a variety of fundraising ideas that they
are looking into.
3. Please identify the corporate or community partners/mentors who will assist and instruct
the students in fabrication, mechanical and electrical concepts, computer programming
and control, and computer aided design and animation. How will they enable your
students to be successful in this project?
There are many different businesses that have shown an interest in what we are
doing with our robotics program. Different individuals have volunteered to come
in and help share their expertise with our students. We are fortunate in Bethany to
have a large group of companies at our local airport, Wiley Post. We have
reached out to several companies within the airport that access to engineering
experts and fabrication equipment. Many of these companies have expressed
interest in helping and supporting our team. We also have access to Canadian
Valley Technology Center, where many of our students go to learn skills such as
welding, machine work and programming. Some of our members have learned
skills at the technology center that will aid in the building of our competition
robot. The relationship with Canadian Valley is something that we continue to
foster. We have also been able to foster a relationship with the Boeing Company
and one of their engineers, DeLanna Burchett, who is interested in becoming a
mentor for our robotics team. One of our parents, Rick Lance, has experience
with some of the programming and software necessary for the competition and
has agreed to help us on this. Because of these strong contacts we are confident
that are off to a good start with experienced mentors to help our students succeed
in the goals of the competition.
4. Please describe how participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition will provide an
inspirational experience for the participating students, how they will be encouraged to
consider science, technology or engineering related careers, and how participation will
contribute to your school's overall educational goals.
Our school system has always strived to be a leader in producing students who are
ready to go to college and succeed at receiving the degree of their choice. We
have consistently had students score very high in our state end of instruction
exams. As a result, Bethany High School was the top rated public high school in
Oklahoma, based on the Oklahoma State Department of Educations A-F Grading
system. In addition, Bethany High School was also recently named as a 2014
National Blue Ribbon School by the United State Department of Education on
September 30th. The FIRST robotics program would provide another tool to our
students to help them accomplish their goals. Through participation in our

BETHANY HIGH SCHOOL NASA GRANT SUBMISSION

robotics team, students are able to apply the state and national objective skills that
they are learning. High expectations for our students has been a commonplace
anticipation for our students the teachers at Bethany are always looking for new
ways to introduce rigor and cross-curricular projects so that students are put in
new situations where they can test their skills. As with any school system, our
teachers and students are able to overcome the many diverse backgrounds of our
students and expect the very best as an outcome. These expectations are carried
over to our new robotics program. Our teachers are excited to integrate what we
will be doing into their upper level math and science classes, hoping to develop a
collaborative partnership that involves even more students. With these new and
exciting experiences our students are able to see what its like to be in a STEM
career first-hand, which is something that few classrooms can offer, but is
invaluable for a students high school experience.
5. Please describe the facilities that will be used by your team to design, prototype, and
build your robot.
Our school system has a partnership with Canadian Valley Technology Center that
makes available to us a facility that allows for woodworking, welding and metalworking. We also have available several Bethany students that are certified
welders that have offered their services for our robot manufacturing. The schools
computer lab has the capabilities for our students to come in and work on CAD
software when we acquire it as well the design of promotional materials, team
website and other team materials. Our team has several resources that our mentors
have offered us as well as different areas to build the many prototypes and sample
arenas. The school as also allotted us some space to store building materials as
well as a place to test our robot as the competition comes closer.
6. Another critical element for the success of a FIRST Robotics Competition program within
a school is the enthusiastic support of the school or group's administration.
Our schools administration from top to the bottom has been very supportive and
enthusiastic over the start of our robotics team. They understand the importance
of giving every student the opportunity to express themselves fully and gain
valuable life experience while attending Bethany High School. We all believe
that a robotics program is a great way to help meet the goal of having every
student involved in some sort of extracurricular program at Bethany. Over recent
years our leadership at Bethany has put an increased emphasis on technology
education by providing funds to help put technology resources in the hands of
students. Bethany has made STEM development a priority by providing teachers
with the resources to develop programs that involve students from many of the
science classes that we offer. For example, our administration has given us great
support for the upcoming participation in the University of Oklahomas annual

BETHANY HIGH SCHOOL NASA GRANT SUBMISSION

engineering open house competitions. The students in several of the science

classes are working on projects for submission into the competitions. Because of
this our administration has agreed to pay for the admission and transportation of
the students to OU for the competition and pay for their registration. Due to this
mindset, the administration has been very helpful and excited with our new
robotics program. They are looking forward to our team demonstrations for the
elementary school as well as future demonstrations and presentations to the
school board and district administration.
7. Please describe what will set your team apart from other teams competing in this
year's FIRST Robotics Competition. What makes you unique? If there are any other
considerations that you would like to share with the review panel, you may do so here as
well.
I believe that the one thing that makes our robotics team so unique is that this has
been a grassroots effort from the beginning, started by the students. It was the
students who approached me last year and urged me to apply to the district for the
establishment of a robotics club. The students have also been very involved in the
recruitment of sponsors and mentors for the competition. They have even helped
prepare the materials for the application of this grant! One of the other things that
has been amazing to watch is how well students of all learning types and levels
can work together on a common goal. In our robotics club we have all kinds of
students ranging from 4.0 honors students to students with cognitive disabilities
like autism. It has been a great opportunity for students to learn from each other
and understand that every student can contribute and every student has a voice in
our organization. Another advantage of this being a student created and student
led organization is the constant support and work from the students. Our
members are constantly working to get more students to participate in the club as
well as working to secure more resources for the costs of participating in the
FIRST competitions. This attitude from the student-members has shown myself,
our administration, our faculty, and other students that the robotics club is
something that is constantly growing and will be around for a very long time.