Our Story

Team Argos Chairman’s Award
Submission 2006

Team Argos embraces the spirit of the FIRST competition: teamwork, diversity, commitment, and enthusiasm.

The FIRST experience had a profound impact on the student participants. They gained knowledge, new friends, and exposure to the real-world experience of developing and building a working product. They have learned both technical and people skills: working on a team, organizing people, adhering to a deadline, time management, and most importantly, expressing ideas while at the same time listening to others. This has raised the level of mutual respect among the team members. Another valuable lesson was to not pay attention to stereotypes of engineers and technologists.

Stephen Moser said, "Technology isn’t just for nerds—it impacts everyone. Technology is a building process."

Jeff and Katie Birkel are supporters of the FIRST programs—Jeff is a FIRST LEGO^TM mentor and Katie is a Team Argos participant. Jeff describes Katie as very artistic and a "girlie-girl."' Jeff, an engineer at Caterpillar, has never directed Katie towards science, and admits that he has probably stereotyped Katie towards more gender-biased activities. During the fall engineering classes, Katie’s interest was really sparked and she would come home and tell her Dad all about the great things she learned. Now, her favorite class is science and she earned an A+ in geometry. Jeff says, "I never would have guessed it. This spring, I’m giving her an old lawn-mower engine to take apart!"

Team Argos has a variety of mentors that provide guidance and structure to help the students reach their full potential. The students were divided up into different areas to provide day-to-day continuity, with a student leader who was responsible for providing a summary of the evening’s work and list of materials and actions needed the next evening. This summary was e-mailed to the mentors to keep everyone engaged. Mentors dedicated a significant amount of time to Team Argos. Melanie Willi commented, "I really look up to the mentors for giving their time to us. They have so many responsibilities and other things they could be doing, and yet they choose to come and share their knowledge and time with us." Over the last six weeks, the mentors and students have grown closer to each other, to where the lines between mentor and student have blurred. Mentor Eric Andris said, "The most rewarding part of working with the students was getting to know them first as individuals, then seeing them get excited about how a technical vocation fits into their future." Eric Ward said, "I feel like I can really relate to the mentors after spending six intense weeks with them. I have a better appreciation for the work they do and what drives them. It has taught me about options that are available to me, and what I might do for a career."

The FIRST program had a great impact on the team and community. Because this is the first year for the Peoria-area to compete, students from every Peoria-area high school were given the opportunity to participate on a team. The students have overcome rivalries and had a chance to interact with peers they would not have met otherwise. Richwoods student Mical Amanuel enjoyed the opportunity to work with students from other schools: "Through sports, you get to meet people from your own school. With the FIRST competition, we have gotten to meet new people, and instead of competing with them, you are working together."

In addition to impacting the community, it has affected students on an individual basis. Elyse Menke feels that FIRST has built on her previous engineering experiences like Explorer’s Post and Destination Technology. "I’ve gotten to apply what I learned. We get exposure to engineering and science, and we get to meet mentors from industry." Students have also learned about themselves. Joel Kouakou learned about the importance of time management: "My class load didn’t change, so I learned how to get more done in less time." Vincent Simmons learned about compromise and collaboration in designing the Argos team logo: "I had a design in mind, but I wanted to use everyone’s ideas to make the team happy." Eric Ward learned how to work without a net: "There wasn’t always a mentor there helping you do everything, and sometimes you had to do it by yourself and work with people without the mentor as a buffer." All in all, the students grew in many ways during the build.

Todd Pilon, Senior Producer from WTVP, has been mentoring and teaching for 13 years. " I like teaching when you see the light-bulb come on: ‘Now I get it! This is interesting!’ When the connection is made between what they thought and what is reality. They realize what is in their hands is a wonderful tool to do anything they want. They can topple governments; they can build stronger relationships; they can tell a story. I think more than anything, this is another experience to give people options for what they can do with their life." When we were chatting with Todd about this, one of the students came up and grabbed his camera to shoot a practice run. Six weeks ago, the students would have been timid about jumping into something they did not know. Today, they dive in head first.

Students became increasingly comfortable with unknown technology throughout the project. Caterpillar and WTVP provided commercial-grade photographic and video equipment for the students. At the beginning, one or two assigned students would use the camera, but it didn’t take long until any of the students would grab one to take a picture, document their progress, or tell their story. The students gained the confidence to use this technology to their advantage: by taking video of the trajectory of the ball in flight, they were able to calculate the velocity and angle of the ball’s motion. Understanding this fundamental physical law moved them from a "cut and try" approach to truly understanding the physics of the ball’s flight in order to optimize their design. State-of-the-art imaging led Argos to state-of-the-art robotics.

Team Argos has spread the FIRST message through many different methods. Students demonstrated the robot at the Manual H.S. 8th grade orientation for students and parents, to generate interest for future FIRST teams. The team had local TV news coverage, and has been producing a PBS documentary since the fall of 2005. The team has a VEX robot on display at the local Lakeview Museum, to showcase the achievements of the students. On February 19 the robots of the Peoria-area teams were demonstrated for friends and family and covered by local news. Some of the most exciting projects are the videos WTVP and the students put together: a 30 minute documentary, a promotional video, and two student-produced videos for the regional competition. The videos tell the story of how Team Argos went from "brain power" to paper to construction—the journey of going from nothing to something.

Team Argos has been fortunate in the strong partnerships provided by the community. Caterpillar, the Caterpillar Foundation, and NASA are funding registration, travel, and lodging expenses. In addition to monetary support, Caterpillar has provided cameras, video equipment, laptops, software, practice field and facility space, and media contacts. Caterpillar has also provided many mentors and staff time to organize events and provide leadership of the different teams. Manual H.S. provided rooms and machine-shop space to build the robot. CIRC has supported the website development and taught the students how to create animations. Another key partnership formed was with the local public broadcasting station, WTVP. They not only provided money, cameras, and instruction for film working, but also taught the students valuable lessons in how to interview, speak, and tell a story. Mical gained practical, hands-on experience on how to do interviews, use the camera, and produce a video. "I never liked making videos for projects at school, but after this, I made an English project video. I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing this before." The partnerships played a significant role in the creation and success of Team Argos.

From the beginning, Team Argos has bonded together through many diverse experiences. The team members and mentors have grown as individuals, but also as a team and a community. Individual students from different backgrounds have come together to create something incredible. Many young people never have the opportunity to experience the technology kaleidoscope presented through the FIRST experience. FIRST helped enrich the students’ knowledge, outlook on life, and abilities to perform elaborate tasks in math, science, technology, and communication. This competition brought about personal growth, from speaking presence to technical skills, that can be applied in America’s competitive industries. FIRST has provided a basis of positive knowledge and given students reassurance that being intelligent and responsible are qualities that will pay off and be valued by their peers. FIRST has helped them realize that technology is fun and it can be just as exciting as playing your favorite sport.