Our Goals and Ambitions

Goals within our team are to improve on communication, technical expertise, operating efficiency, and increase our membership, which in three years has doubled in number from 12 to 25. It is important for us maintain diversity in membership, which is currently about 50% female. One of our most important goals is to secure more resources, to ensure not only our survival as a competitive team, but our growth too. This year, the team created a parent booster club and is in the application process for becoming a 501c3 nonprofit organization. This will allow our team to access corporate funding opportunities.

Goals within our school are to steadily increase the number of robotics/engineering courses offered and the number of students enrolling in them. This year, for the first time in the history of our school, our principal allowed Robotics I to be offered. The focus of this course is computer applications, specifically programming robot C using NXT kits and engineering design using Solidworks.

  • For the first course, Robotics I, the school provided us with approximately $1,800 worth of NXT kits and laptops, and will possibly be providing us with a dozen more laptops next year. The school has also committed to beginning a three-year strand of robotics/engineering courses to be phased in over the next two years.
  • The second course, Robotics II will cover the fundamentals of mechanical and electrical engineering.
  • The third course, Robotics III, will integrate the first two years of study together in a rigorous, research-based course.

    • Mr. Sperry, the course instructor and team sponsor, has made it his goal to become certified in Career & Technology Education and to enroll in a Master' s degree program at the University of Texas at Austin in Engineering Education. These efforts will allow to program to continue to qualify for more course resources and allow students to receive college credit. Mr. Sperry will continue to develop and refine this curriculum and has already presented robotics curriculum for other teachers at the NSTA convention in Austin last year. Our mentors have already provided several workshops for students at Anderson and other schools in using Solidworks and Labview. We plan to increase the number of workshops to assist new emerging Austin-area teams. Our overarching goal is for our robotics program to serve as successful model for other schools to emulate.

    Our goals within the community are to help start and mentor new teams. Build awareness of robotics/engineering through media/community events. We plan to continue our public outreach efforts to about a dozen local elementary and middle schools and local groups. This year Anderson will be hosting the 2009 BEST competition, an FLL qualifying tournament, and for the second year, the "Robot Roundup". We hope to continue to receive exposure in the Austin American Statesman and local television coverage. We hope to work with Jane Young to create a committee for obtaining and allocating resources for current and future Austin Area teams.

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