OUTREACH
As a team, Wirecats is committed to the community. We strive to give back to the community that has supported our team and get youth involved and excited about STEM. Each Wirecat takes part in community service activities. We hope to continue working with both the youth and the community as a whole to create excitement about STEM.
We enjoy the work we do with youth because it gives us the opportunity to foster creativity and innovation for the future. Our team is excited to be able to show the work we have done through FIRST to kids and inspire them to follow their dreams.
Simsbury Innovation Fair: At the Simsbury Innovation Fair, our girls demonstrated what they’ve learned from FIRST by explaining both our robot and the FIRST program to the local community. People of all ages came by, and we were able to successfully spread the importance of STEM.
CTC Women of Innovation Dinner: Leaders on the team were invited to present at the annual CTC Women of Innovation Dinner. There we displayed our robot and talked with people about our team. It was incredibly rewarding to meet so many inspirational women in the community.
Farmington FLL Expo: Our students helped run workshops for kids to demonstrate the ways STEM impacts our daily lives. Working with the children really gave the girls a chance to see how they can impact others and make a difference.
In January of 2015, we created a two week “J-Term” class which we used to teach other girls at our school about the varying aspects of FIRST robotics, as well as the importance of STEM. We taught the girls in the class the basics of how to use tools and writing to a sponsor. These girls also created logos, our team name, and brainstormed ideas for how to design our robot to fit the game for that year.
Cobb School: The students on the Wirecats strive to increase youth involvement in STEM. Members from our team have spent time working with the elementary school students at the Cobb School on programming exercises and other activities to engage them in STEM. To teach programming, we helped the kids write a directional code for one of our girls who was acting as a robot playing the 2015 FRC game, “Recycle Rush”. We also demonstrated our robot to the students and shared with them more about what our team does.
Avon-Con: Several Wirecats volunteered at a local comic convention held by the neighboring Avon Free Public Library along with Team 1124, The UberBots. Students helped the librarians and other volunteers to escort speakers to their rooms, carry boxes for the vendors, and took the opportunity to tell people about the team and its mission.
Senior Mentoring: We partnered with another local team (Team 1124, The UberBots) to help educate seniors in technology. Working with them proved to be an amazing way to help our community. Working with other teams is an amazing way to meet other people with the same passion, as well as learning from their past experiences.
Barnes and Noble Mini Maker Faire: Students traveled to the Barnes and Noble in the Canton Shoppes to show off our 2016 robot, Scratch. We were able to speak with kids and their parents about what our robot does and the various parts of the robot. We stressed to the parents the importance of getting kids involved in STEM as early as possible and mentioned ways that they would be able to do so.