Beyer Iron Patriots Go to Robotics Nationals
By Michelle Laverty
Beyer High School Iron Patriots Robotics will be traveling to the FIRST World Championships in St Louis Missouri April 27-30, 2016. The team was awarded the Regional Engineering Inspirational Award, sponsored by NASA, at the Sacramento Regional in Davis, CA last week. The Iron Patriots have achieved this monumental goal of attending a FIRST World Championship, in just their initial five years of existence and are the only team from Stanislaus or San Joaquin County to compete at the World Championships.
The award, which provides the winner with a championship berth, was given based on interviews that were conducted by judges throughout the competition, and celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s community.
To earn this award the Iron Patriots mentored a team at Franklin Elementary, as well as a high school team in Los Angeles via Webcast. The past two years they have hosted a FIRST Lego League tournament, enabling local teams to compete within Stanislaus County.
FIRST teams have only six weeks to design, build and program their robot. They work with volunteer mentors to achieve their goals. The competition team is based at Beyer High School’s Robotics Academy. Team members work nights and weekends to build the competition robot. Much of the funding for the competition team is supported by the Beyer Robotics Boosters 501(c)3.
Our team consists of 27 students plus mentors and we are hoping to take the entire team to Missouri for the for the four day competition. We estimate the costs to be about $40,000 for the team’s travel. Modesto City Schools will be supporting some of the costs for team members and mentors to travel to this World Class event. However, community support essential to help students attend this life-changing event.
Donations can be made to the Beyer High Robotics Boosters by going to www.gofundme.com/beyer-robotics or contacting Michele Laverty at 209-604-4916.
