Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL
(a) Statement saying: “I, student name, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”

I, Brendan Trang, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component

Taylor Halsey
Rock'n'Roll Robots FTC Team 25 Mentor
taylor@rocknrollrobots25.com

Carol Olewine 
Inland Empire Regional Event Coordinator

carol.olewine@gmail.com

These two people were the ones that allowed me to volunteer at their events so that i may complete my independent component. 

(d) Explanation of what you completed.    


As i said in my description for my second independent component, i would be volunteering at FIRST Robotics competitions accross the county to meet people higher up in the field as well as to network with experts in their respective fields whether it be Science, technology, engineering, or math. The event i volunteered for was the FIRST Tech Challenge regional chamionships in Monrovia High School. I assisted as usual in Team Queueing where i met several other students like myself who wanted to Queue these types of events. I also was put into contact with a person who i could interview, Donald Schmidt with SMART education. I talked to almost 50 different teams from around the region about their skills and robotics knowledge and i basically got to do a small survey on the skills and usefulness that FTC brings to the kids which helped prove my answer.
The next FTC event i volunteered for was the Grand Terrace High School Inland Empire FIRST Robotics Regional. All that technical jargon just states where the event was held and FIRST Robotics regional refers to an event help for the highest tier of FIRST events for teams in the inland empire region. I worked again as a team queuer because that is my preferred job. It put me in contact with all the teams which helps me alot with my project. It allows me to talk to all of them and gauge their opinions on the events as well as learn more about the event so that my team could compete better.
I was still working at the FRC regional in Grand Terrace but today instead of doing team queueing i did robotic judging. I was put in direct contact with several of the head judges. Head judges are revered within the FIRST community for being the top of the top experts in their field. The contact allowed me to exchance contact information as well as speak to many of the smart minds in STEM fields today. I also ran into the head of SMART education, Mrs. Liberty Naud. Her and i spoke together for several moments on the state of the event and the impact that this singular event would have on the kids.
This day on Friday, i met with my robotics team to recount my volunteering experience as well as the experience they had showcasing the team at the Grand Terrace event. We discussed many plans for the future of our robotics team as well as planning what we were to do for fundraising for the remainder of the year. We discussed our I-Fest plan to raise money and began working on making it a reality.

INTERPRETIVE 
Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  

These photos are from March 1st and 2nd. They are photos of the event that happened at Grand Terrace High School. 

These photos are from when i volunteered with Ms. Taylor Halsey at the Monrovia High School FIRST tech challenge regional championships.

These two emails were sent to me after i volunteered at both of these events. 

APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. 
This component helped me answer my second answer, Progression of programs. A lot of the students i asked as well as a lot of the people i spoke to said they have been in the program since they were kids doing FIRST Lego League and it kept them interested. In a specific example, i was speaking to Ms. Liberty Naud and i asked her if she would be putting her kids into FIRST lego league the moment they became old enough. She told me that she has already started getting them into robotics ideas as well as learning about basic engineering ideas and principles so that they may be more excited when they actually began to be a part of FIRST Lego League. She began telling me about how kids who do something they're good at want to do more of that and she gave the analogy much like how kids who are good at video games like to play more. This same time of "do things you're good at" attitude is what helps keep students in the STEM programs from FIRST and propels them into STEM careers.