Good afternoon! In the interest of keeping threads separate, I noticed some talk in the cafeteria thread was about the FIRST robotics team, the science lab they utilize, and the prospect of moving them to the middle school. Id like to explain this a bit further. I am a mentor on the Hollis Brookline FIRST Robotics team. This is my 11th season with the team, I graduated HBHS in 2006. First, Id like to point out that the FIRST Robotics team is approximately 80 students, which is about 9% of the entire school population. The science lab that they use is not a lab (it may be considered a science lab since it has an eye-wash station) -- it is a machine shop with machines that the engineering/STEM classes use, such as a milling machine, lathe, band saw, and others. The classes that use the shop are various physics classes, engineering, and science. Faculty/students from the building borrow tools and space for projects year round. This machine shop, along with the accompanying computer lab and nearby classrooms (enough rooms to host 80 students plus the 20 or so mentors) could be successfully moved to another part of the high school, given an addition, or left where it is. The relocation of the shop to the middle school would almost entirely wipe out the STEM/engineering courses that are currently being offered that use that room, the science department/faculty/etc would no longer have that resource, and the entire robotics team, 9% of your student population, would have to relocate to the middle school where not only would the shop have to exist, but a computer lab and several ancillary classrooms, including software packages that are currently taught/licensed by the high school. Regarding how important FIRST Robotics is to students futures, when compared to other extra-curricular activities for me is very simple. I can tell you about how it changed my life and I went on to get my engineering degree and now work as an engineer, or I can let the numbers speak for themselves. You want a FIRST team in your high school. There are over $19M available in scholarships for students on a FIRST team. In 2012, 1 in 3 students who applied to a FIRST Scholarship, GOT IT. Remember how on March 3rd so many people showed up to the co-op meeting that the meeting had to be broadcast internally into the theatre? Myself and a robotics student were fetched from the robotics meeting down the hall to set that up for you -- the robotics teams unique skillset is constantly being called upon, and to lose that to the middle school is not, in my opinion, a solution. Now that Ive hopefully provided some insight onto this matter, what are your thoughts regarding how the machine shop will be treated in terms of this CO-OP/facilities/athletics/etc bond?
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:26:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015