POBOTS (Team 353), is dedicated to giving back to our local community, and the FIRST community.  Below is a list of this year's various community activities.

 

POBOTS "Go Green"

The Pobots "go green" initiative has deep deep roots in both the team and in the school community as a whole. Our go green initiative was first spearheaded 3 years ago by Mr. Alan Rappaport, one of the mentors of both the robotics team and the Techies (technical production club).

In order to organize a system for recycling plastic water and drink bottles throughout the school, Mr. Rappaport created a tertiary  club to hone in the efforts of the Robotics Team and the school community as a whole towards the goal of placing our school on the forefront of the environmental awareness cause. Upon achieving massive success and after receiving very large amounts of student involvement, the Environmental Awareness Club created by Mr. Rappaport became so large that it grew out of his hands and into the hands of Mr. Desimone, as a full time and very popular club.

About a year later, with the bottle recycling initiative efficiently maintained by the Environmental Awareness Club, the Robotics Team once again took the initiative to expand the system which was currently in place. The Robotics Team recognized that while the school had made great strides in its goal to go green with its plastic recycling programs,  there was still significant room for improvement. The major area of deficiency which the team addressed was the school's inability to recycle the hundreds of pounds of aluminum cans thrown away each month. Furthermore, we recognized the profitability of raw aluminum scrap and as such decided to kill two birds with one stone: save the planet and line the team's pockets. Following the legacy of Mr. Rappaport's Environmental Awareness Club, we once again created a tertiary group which would handle the development of the and the maintenance of the aluminum recycling program. Many months later and a few thousand cans saved, the Engineering Club's Recycling committee  continues to collect and sell the many discarded cans around the school, doing a service to both the world and the team's finances.

 

Nike Shoe Drive:

 This year, our team was chosen to participate in Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe drive. Every year, Nike selects a small number of applications to participate in this program. Each group is allowed to donate 200 pairs of shoes. Once donated, these shoes are ground up to be used as blacktop. Nike then installs the blacktop in poor communities across the country.  We have collected all the shoes, and they are now being used for playgrounds. 

Community Events

Atria

This year, as well as many years in the past, the Engineering Club visited the local Atria, an assisted living center here in Plainview. Several times this year, our team headed over here to demonstrate our robot, explain what our club does and what we have achieved, and provide activities such as button making. The kids have a lot of fun interacting with everyone at the center and promoting our clubs ideals and those of FIRST.

 

Spreading FIRST

Engineering Awareness Night:

In order to inspire kids to be a part of FIRST, to explore engineering, and technology, as well as to inspire professionals to mentor our students, our team hosts an Engineering Awareness Night. This year, we will hold the fourth annual engineering awareness night. The event is always great success!  We invite the community, and the school district to take part in a hands on demonstration of all aspects of FRC and FLL. We have robots on both platforms that attendees are able to try, as well as stations for exploring electrical, pneumatics, and programming. We give shop tours, take names of all those interested in participating in the future, and invite all of the attendees to come to see the FRC regional competition first hand. It is hard for people to imagine the excitement of FIRST without seeing it. The Plainview Old Bethpage Herald has run several stories about Engineering Awareness Night.

 

 

FLL:

We also mentor our middle schools FLL teams. In addition, our district hosted an FLL practice tournament last year. Our team helped to organize the tournament, and volunteered to help run it. At the event, we raised money that we donated to the SBPLI FLL Regional Championship Tournament in Longwood. We also volunteer as robot inspectors, judge assistants, and as a judge, at the SBPLI FLL tournaments.

One year, while our team was volunteering at the Farmingdale FLL tournament, a Girl Scout team needed some help. We helped them to build their robot, and taught them some programming. They were able to compete, and complete two missions! After the Farmingdale tournament, we invited them to our shop, so that we could continue to mentor the team. They came, had a great time, and accomplished a lot. This year (2011-2012), some of our members even mentored some of the local FLL teams, one of whom was able to advance to the next level of compititon and will be competing at Longwood!

 

Elementary Schools:

To spread the FIRST message within our schools, each year, we visit the elementary schools, and demonstrate our robot. The teachers and children are always so excited! Last year, as a result, the head of the science department for the district decided to add a robotics unit to the curriculum. This year, there was a JFLL unit at each of the elementary schools.