11-29-2012 meeting of the Rotary Club of Chickasha
Members of the Chickasha High School Robotics team demonstrated for the Rotary Club of Chickasha on its 11-29-2012 meeting the robot used in last year's FIRST Robotics competition.
The Nov. 29, 2012 meeting of the Rotary Club of Chickasha opened with a prayer, pledge and song.
Guests included prospective member Dr. Justin Wallace and Perry Ramsey's RotariAnn Virginia and grandson, Parker.
Prayer concerns include Bill and Jancie McVey.
President Cody White reminded that the club would match points on all Paul Harris Fellow contributions in December.
The Christmas Party is Tuesday, Dec. 11. It will take the place of that week's meeting. Ann Manchester asked that we do a better job of selling raffle tickets because we have yet to recover the cost of the prizes -- an Ipad and a on "all-in-one" touch screen computer.
President Cody said anyone interesting in participating in a Rotarian produce motion picture, should contact him.
Rotarian of the Day was Larry Brown, who introduced Ann Fairburn and members of the Chickasha High School Robotics team as our guest speakers.
Ann explained a little about the second-year program that strives "to inspire students to go into engineering, science and math-related careers." She then showed a video narrated by Morgan Freeman, which further explains the FIRST Robotics program. FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology."
FRC is a competition that combines technology and sports. The technology aspect being the construction and use of robots. The robots must compete in a sport-type game every year against and with other teams because the completion is between alliances of teams and not individual teams. This type of theme challenges teams
not only in design and fabrication, but also strategy, business, marketing and cooperation.
More than 250,000 students participate internationally. There are about 40 teams at Oklahoma High Schools. Chickasha has expected its program this year to include middle school and elementary students in FIRST LEGGO programs.
The CHS team is very community-minded, having sponsored a coat drive and worked on downtown beautification and the city sidewalk project.
The team has about a $45,000 budget of which they have raised about $20,000 so far. There are various levels of giving for the business to consider.
They will learn in January the game for the spring competition and can start building and programming their robot then. They will compete in two regionals next spring and hopefully go to International in St. Louis for the second straight year.
The CHS team did quite well in its first year, earning two Rookie All Star awards and a Safety Recognition award in qualifying for the International Competition.
The students then demonstrated their robot was last year and it shot foam basketballs.
You can learn more about the FIRST program by going to usfirst.org or by calling Ann Fairburn at 913-219-3808.
The meeting adjourned after recitation of the Rotary 4-Way test.