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HBHS Robotics Team 1073 grateful for support

To the Editor:

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to each and everyone in the Brookline and Hollis community for their overwhelming support of the Hollis Brookline High School’s FIRST Robotics team as they brought their successful season to a close by qualifying for and attending the FIRST Robotics World Championships in St. Louis, Mo. The mentors’ mission on Team 1073 is to grow our students, and as it takes a village, we reached out to our village, and our village was right there for us! Thank you all so much! We were able to bring 42 students and mentors to the World Championships, a new experience for many, and we don’t know when we will have the chance again. In addition to four very long days (12-14 hours each day) of competition, the students were able to visit a few historic locations and do some team bonding at City Museum. Our students will talk about this experience for years to come, and it is all because of the support of our community. Thank you all so much.

The HBHS Robotics team continues, year after year, to teach our students about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), but mostly to grow them as individuals with many skills: organization, teamwork, leadership, and completing an impossible task in a limited amount of time. FIRST Robotics teams are given a challenge, a kit of parts, and six weeks starting in January to design and build a robot capable of competing against robots from other teams. We are looking for mentors to help for the 2017-18 season in the following subgroups: Mechanical, Electrical, Integration, and Business and Competition Strategy. Our mentor motto, coined by eight-year veteran mentor John Heden: Mentors are “always beside or behind the students, never in front.” This is how we run our team. The students make the decisions, but the mentors guide them by asking and answering appropriate questions. We are looking for technically-minded adults, and also experts in business and writing. If you would like to be part of this successful team, please contact me at sue.hay@sau41.org.

Sue Hay

HBHS Technology Teacher, FIRST Robotics Team 1073 Lead Mentor