In response to FIRST founder, Dean Kamen's homework. This year, we are actively mentoring two FIRST Global Teams to offer technical support remotely, which includes both mechanical and software assistance. Team Fiji, and Team Timor Leste are two FGC teams we are able to assist this year. We look forward to seeing their competition-ready robots in this year's FGC Competition!
As an ongoing project, we are doing our part to assist local Hawaii FIRST Lego League teams that don't yet have an FLL Table, as well as currently building competition-legal tables for one of Oahu's FLL Tournament.
We have successfully started 2 FLL Explore and Challenge teams this year and actively mentor these teams.
In addition to starting FLL Teams, we are currently working with a New Zealand school with their rookie FIRST Robotics program.
Working with Kalani High School's Team Magma, we worked with young kids with the Lego Mindstorm Ev4 robotics kits to increase STEM interest amongst the younger generation.
We provided information to the Hawaii home school community on how to join/create a robotics team.
We created a Game Manual Quiz and shared it with 430+ teams; over 2,600 people took our quiz with replies from 8 different countries. This project has led us to expand our contacts, ideas, and understanding of robotics and FIRST as a community.
The Schools Of The Future Conference is for educators worldwide to reflect upon ways to better serve students. For the past 4 years, we have presented and worked with educators interested in starting robotics programs. Currently, we are working with a school in New Zealand to start an FTC program.
As conference attendees, we showed others who attended how we utilize technology to enhance our learning journey.
We are grateful to be working at the FIRST Robotics Booth at this year's Okinawan Festival with Hawaii FIRST Robotics! Thank you for the opportunity and we are so glad to being able to show young kids what robotics and FIRST is about. Throughout our shift, we were able to connect with about 4000 people!
Planned and organized by Team Waffles, our students partnered with Kalani High School's Team Magma and Aliiolani Elementary School's Team Mighty Ali'i to showcase Hawaii's FLL & FTC Programs. Throughout this one-day expo at Hawaii's largest enclosed shopping center, we were able to reach out to 2,400+ people on FIRST, FIRST Lego League, and FIRST Tech Challenge. We provided information on how to find a robotics team, and/or how to start a robotics team.
Over the summer of 2023, Team Waffles worked tirelessly creating multiple demo robots that could pick up various game elements from previous seasons such as scoring cones, stacking stones, and shooting rings. In July, we presented these robots we built at the Liliha Public Library to share our love of robotics with kids and their families. Our goal was to spread FIRST awareness and STEM in our community.
Throughout the months of January and February, we created STEM brochures, then visited a number of libraries and received approval to display the brochures we created to educate those interested in STEM. In the brochure, we discussed different robotics programs, gender statistics in STEM occupations, and the average income for STEM jobs as well as potential scholarships. Every library we visited welcomed our brochures and was happy to show/give to the public. We reached out to about 15 libraries and handed out over 300 brochures.
The Schools of the Future Conference is the largest of its nature in Hawai'i and serves as an opportunity for teachers and administrators, across Hawaii's public, private, and charter school educators and administrators to reflect upon how schools can better serve students. The conference is produced annually in partnership with the Hawai'i State Department of Education, the Hawai'i Association of Independent Schools, the Hawai'i Community Foundation and the Hawai'i Society for Technology in Education. Each year, thousands of educators gather to learn from each other.
This year, Team Waffles was again able to present at the Schools of the Future Conference. Our awesome students taught seven educators from across the state how to run a robotics program in hopes of expanding the STEM community in Hawaii. Congratulations to our phenomenal students for their service to the community and for representing Assets School so well!
Reaching up to 100,000 people!
We were able to let kids have fun driving robots, as well as giving out more information on all FIRST Robotics Programs to the public.
Our students from Assets High School - (from left) Emily, Kahea, Leilei and Kelli Ann - represented the Assets Robotics Program, which gave a 15-minute presentation and demonstration at cybersecurity company Trellix's Ko' OLina conference before more than 300 employees.
The school received 20 Chromebooks from Girls Who Code in partnership with Trellix & Go Team Events. Pictured with the students is Trellix chief revenue office Adam Philpott (center).
Trellix and Go Team Events is also now sponsoring Team Waffles with the upcoming 2022-2023 FTC & FRC Robotics Season.
Our Assets Robotics Mascot - Wall-E, was a fun project led by Mason Pimentel and Mitchell Kee Chong, so that we can have fun while competing through the FTC robotics season this year, despite the difficulties of doing robotics throughout a pandemic.
Nowadays, we use Wall-E during most of the events that we host or participate in. The kids love it!
Owen, Chris, and William's medical robot presentation at Queen's Medical Center, 11/3, 2020.
(Photos/Video courtesy of the Queen's Medical Center)
Thank you to the Queen's Medical Center to this amazing opportunity, and for your generous donation to our Robotics program!
When COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in 2020, our high school graduation was one of the many things that changed. Team Waffles wanted to see what we could do to contribute for our seniors, especially our robotics seniors, to have as great an experience as possible, despite the social distancing requirements.
Our little invention made it to several local news, as well as a few national news. We are glad we are able to have fun and contribute to our school community with this little fun project.
