About Us
Team 696's 2005 Powerpoint
Team Strengths
“It's useful to have cells that serve specific functions when the need arises,” wrote Doug Edwards, former online brand manager in the marketing department of Google, “but it's inefficient to have those cells hanging around sucking energy from the rest of the organism if their singular function is no longer required. Better to have cells that can adapt themselves to any situation, solve the problem and then move on to the next issue.” The adaptive cells Edwards is referring to are stem cells. Stem cells are the most adaptive cells in the human body; they can adjust to function as heart cells, brain cells, and every other type of cell we have. Edwards’s ideology best describes the structure of our team. The Clark Magnet Robotics Team members function as stem cells to run the body of the team. To maximize efficiency, each member learns a diverse set of skills. For instance, some members who learn computer modeling with Inventor also learn how to fabricate parts at a machine shop. This diversity in skills allows the team efficient workflow and improved resource management. Instead of being like “those cells hanging around sucking energy from the rest,” members of the Clark Magnet Robotics Team seek another task to solve and tackle.Team History:
The team first competed in 2001, just three years after Clark Magnet High School first opened its doors. The team began as a group of 13 students interested in making a combat “battle bot.” One student spoke to Mr. DeVore, our school advisor, about forming a club for this, but Mr. DeVore did some research and discovered FIRST robotics. The group of students jumped at the idea of creating robots to do constructive tasks in a competition and formed the Clark Magnet Robotics Team. The team branched out, slowly establishing connections with sponsors and mentors. Over the years we have developed many lasting ties with such organizations such as JPL, Glendale Community College, Arrow Metal Stamping, TruCut, and others. Since 2001, we have participated in each Los Angeles Regional, and in 2004 we attended both the Los Angeles and Arizona regionals. Each year, we have come close to winning the competition; we always seeded high and at least reached the semi-finals. We have received some other awards such as the Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship Award at the Arizona Regional and the Daimler-Chrysler Team Spirit Award at the Los Angeles Regional the same year! We have achieved much during our six short years, all the while enjoying the “hardest fun ever!”Team Goals:
Like any team practicing the credo of FIRST, our team’s goal is to teach not only engineering skills and teamwork, but also gracious professionalism to our members. We constantly remind ourselves daily, as Dr. Woodie Flowers put it, that “professionals possess special knowledge and are trusted by society to use that knowledge responsibly. Thus, gracious professionals make a valued contribution in a manner pleasing to others and to themselves.” The team has a long history of gracious professionalism. The team was structured on the foundations of respect and teamwork, the foundation of the FIRST credo. At the Arizona regional in 2004, the team won the Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship Award for “continuous gracious professionalism in the heat of competition, both on and off the playing field.” The Sportsmanship Award is proudly displayed at the front of our school as one of our most prized awards.Funding Sources:
The Clark Magnet Robotics Team obtains its funding from three primary sources: the school, donations, and corporate contributions and sponsorships. The Clark Magnet ASB is very supportive of the robotics team. This year, as they have done each year since the 2001-2002 competition, the ASB donated $5,000 to the team. Other donations come from a variety of sources; some donations are from individual members and others are from teachers, friends, and team mentors. By the end of build season, the team received in total over $12,000 from donations alone, $4,000 of which came from one committed mentor of the team. We have also received about $4,000 in donations from local shops and large corporations such as Cold Stone Creamery, TruCut Metal, and Bob Smith Toyota. In addition, many corporations donated resources to the team such as sheet metal parts and machine shop time.The Most Significant Challenge the Team Overcame:
During build season, communication gaps in the design process caused many problems and setbacks. The structure of the team had many small teams building the shooter mechanism, chassis, ball storage system, and ball pickup system separately. Teams communicated with each other infrequently, and incompatibility issues sprouted up in the middle of the season. After the inventor models were sent to the head inventor specialist on our team, we discovered that many parts did not fit together and the shooter mechanism extended outside of the starting envelope allowed. The team got together and revamped its organization and communication. We had to redesign just about every aspect of the robot to get around the incompatibility issues we discovered –a daunting task. We communicated better, we designed smarter, and updates were sent to the head inventor specialist more often to prevent problems from being magnified along the design timeline. Organization in the designing process was a major obstacle which hurt our team severely for the first half of the season; it was only in the second half of build season, after we had improved our communication and design strategies, that the robot began to come together.Team is most competitive for which awards this year?
This year our team is most competitive for the Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship award, which “celebrates outstanding sportsmanship and continuous gracious professionalism in the heat of competition, both on and off the playing field.” The team won the Johnson & Johnson award at the Arizona regional in 2004, and we wish to win it again this year. The team knows that winning the competition is nice, but if a team does it without gracious professionalism, victory is not so sweet (what’s victory if every other team dislikes yours?). Our team wishes to demonstrate gracious professionalism on and off the playing field this year to show other teams our belief: winning is nothing unless you have sportsmanship.Community Description
Clark Magnet High School draws students from two distinct communities in Southern California, La Crescenta and Glendale, because it lies on the border between them. Both communities are distinctly different and, in some regards, opposites. La Crescenta is the smaller of both cities, having a population of nearly 19,000 (Census 2000). Glendale is much larger, on the other hand. Glendale’s population was about 194,963 in 2000. It is also interesting to note that about 54% of Glendale’s population is foreign born. Clark Magnet High School is situated in La Crescenta, but it is part of the Glendale Unified School District. The community surrounding Clark is very supportive of FIRST robotics. For instance, the local Glendale Community College allows us to use their machine shop to machine robot parts. Even during the off-season, local shops around Glendale allow us to hold fundraisers to raise more money for the upcoming year. The Glendale News Press and the Valley Sun newspapers have also included us in numerous articles in the past, and the community is fairly well informed about FIRST robotics and our team.Awards
Here is a list of awards and achievements that our teams have acquired throughout the past years:
2006 Los Angeles, CA Regional RadioShack Innovation in Control Award2004 Los Angeles, CA Regional Quarterfinalists and 8th seed
2004 Los Angeles, CA Regional Team Spirit Award
2004 Phoenix, AZ Regional Finalists (thanks 80 and 498)
2004 Phoenix, AZ Regional Sportsmanship Award
2003 Los Angeles, CA Regional Finalists (best match EVER! - thanks 968 and 294)
2003 Phoenix, AZ Regional Semifinalists
2003 Phoenix, AZ Regional 3rd Seed.
2002 Los Angeles, CA Regional Semi-Finalists
2001 Los Angeles, CA Regional Semi-Finalists
