This turned out to be a monumental task, which had to be completed in only a few months in the middle of their move. Starting a team in a place where everything was new was more than a full time job for team coach, Williane.

Westview is a big school with 2500 students, which was more challenging to work with than a small school. The Tech Ed teacher, Mr. K., offered the school’s support but informed us he would be busy coaching a sport team. With him behind us, we were able to start recruiting students for the Robotics Club/Team. It was our goal to have our doors open to other schools and to all students. We see ourselves as role models for the community in recruiting students of all skill ranges and abilities.

Westview’s team is the first robotics team in the Beaverton area, and FIRST was not well known, which made our fundraising efforts more challenging. We made dozens of calls to companies and explained the FIRST program. The local newspaper wrote a front-page article about our team. Many companies could not make a donation because their funds were already allocated for the year, or they felt our goal ($10,000) was unrealistic. Synopsys, Alex’s new employer, was the first one to believe in this new team, later we obtained a Beaverton Education Foundation grant. Parents started to show their support by making donations but it was thanks to the Lego grant that the Team registration was paid and our team was finally launched.

We still needed funds to buy parts, tools, and educational materials. That was when we found another way to spread FIRST message and be able to have the materials we needed to build our robot. Instead of asking companies for funds we asked for parts and not for cash. Once a company donated a product, they were in a partnership with the team. We intend to nurture these relationship. Our team learned how to budget and use the sponsors’ donations wisely.

Mentors started to come and showed tremendous dedication to the team. They worked extra hours to be able to teach the inexperienced students and have the team design become true. Jean and Caio also had to work hard to teach the new team. They had to act as mentors, teaching small tasks to some of the team members, such as using a drill, and had to be especially careful when discussing the team’s ideas so everyone would be listened. The mentors discussed the student’s initial ideas for the design, and made suggestions to help the students narrow down the ideas to the more feasible options. They discussed pros and cons of each option, and the students voted on which option to go with. It was very exciting to watch each of the core team members quickly develop skills and make contributions to the project. The mentors provided guidance throughout the construction phase, but the students fabricated the parts and did the work. There came our motto: “Student designed, student built, mentor advised ”.