San Marino High School’s Titanium Robotics Team came away from the recent FIRST Robotics Idaho regional competition with a major honor in hand. The squad left the town of Nampa, Idaho with the Entrepreneurship Award, which celebrates the ideal entrepreneurial spirit of Robotics by recognizing a team that has developed a comprehensive business plan in order to define, manage, and achieve the team’s ongoing objectives.
To be eligible for the Entrepreneurship Award, the team must bring a summary business plan to each event and be able to explain to judges how the plan helps to ensure the team’s continued participation in FIRST, including explaining how the team has a clear concept or approach to building their team and operates as a cohesive system; risk assessment and management and a clear understanding of the goals of the competition and the mission of FIRST. The summary business plan must be turned into the judges during the pit interviews.
Moreover, Business Vice President Maddie Haddad was a Dean’s List semifinalist while Business President Kimia Hassibi was nominated to attend the world competition as a Dean’s List finalist. The Dean’s List award is meant to celebrate the dedication of individual members to the values of FIRST Robotics.
Hassibi, a junior, was nominated by Coach Scott Barton and was thoroughly interviewed at the Idaho regional. She will undergo similar scrutiny at the World Championships next week in Houston.
“I was asked what I have done with our Robotics team and what I have done to spread the message of STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics]. I told them everything I have done during my involvement the past three years. One of my main goals as business president has been to create a brand, or an image for Titanium Robotics. We have two sides to our team. We are all-inclusive and we try to be one entity. That way, people on the engineering side know what is going and the people on the business side know what is going on and it runs together very well.”
Senior Olivia Cameron, the 2018-19 engineering president for Titanium Robotics, was a Dean’s List finalist last year.
Though San Marino High School’s robot—Galac[Ti]c—will not be traveling to Houston, Hassibi feels it has been a successful year.
“We were very pleased with how we finished,” Hassibi said. “This year ran very smoothly. This was our first season of basically year-round Robotics. We had a summer camp and monthly work sessions, so by the time build season came around in January, we were super prepared. By the time we got to the competitions, we were in good shape. At the regional, we were able to stick to our plan and our goals and did very well.”
