Outreach Within Our School and Community
Ho'olu Ha'aheo Fair
The Ho'olu Ha'aheo Fair was hosted by our Student Association, and featured booths from all the schools clubs and organizations. Many used this as ample fund raising time, but instead our club hosted demonstrations of our past robots, ran video loops of our Botball Regionals and Nationals last year as well as the game overview for FIRST this year. Many were impressed and we received some club donations. It was a great way to get involved with our school and the community at the same time!
Ellison Onizuka Day
Ellison Onizuka Day is held in honor of a local astronaut who died in 86' aboard the Challenger space shuttle. This year it was held on January 26, 2008 and our club set up a display for students and parents to take a look at. To see our image gallery from this event, click here
Camp Eureka
Camp Eureka was a 4 day, 4 hour robotics camp designed, planned, and carried out by our robotics club to give kids a fun and hands on experience with robotics. We hosted the two camp sessions during our Winter Intersession, and will be hosting camp sessions again in the summer.
During the camp we introduced elementary students to programming and robotics as tools in solving problems and challenges using the ROBOTIX Computer Set and the LEGO® MINDSTORMS™ Robotics Invention System™ which uses a computer programming language called RoboLab. Demonstrations in FIRST, Botball, and Underwater ROV were also provided.
- Location: Hilo High School, Hilo HI
- Director: Tom Murphy, Hilo High School Robotics, Electronics, and STEM Program (email: )
- Eligibility: Students in grades 3-6 (as of January 2008)
- Tuition: $150.00 (includes T-Shirt, science and technology kits)
To view our camp brochure, click here.
Thanksgiving/Christmas Parade
Every Thanksgiving weekend our community holds a Thanksgiving/Christmas Parade. This year our club designed a float where we displayed our robots from various years, and marched along side dressed in PVC from our underwater R.O.V's. It was a great opportunity to showcase ourselves to the community and to promote a greater awareness of robotics.
Robofest
Robofest is a statewide (Hawaii) robotics competition. This year the challenge placed robots on a simulated volcanic landscape, with competition classes for elementary, intermediate, high school and open-league teams. Scholastic robotics teams are invited to participate in age and robotic platform brackets. Our team displayed prior robots, and a presentation board letting people know about who we were. We also helped with the set up and clean up of the competition.
Mentoring for Robofest
With the Robofest Competition rolling around in November, our club offered to mentor various elementary schools in preparation for the event. The three schools we mentored were Hilo Union, Kapiolani, Keaukaha, and Kaumana Elementary. Every afternoon we would meet with one of the groups of students (some multiple times a week) and assist them with building and programming.
Living In Paradise
In October our club was approached by Living In Paradise, a local television show, to be featured in an upcoming episode. Finding it a wonderful chance to let everyone about our new and improved club, we began preparing for our debut ;). During the filming of the segment we demonstrated robots/projects our club had worked on in the past aswell as present, and took an opportunity to thank HELCO for their generosity in sponsoring up this year, as well as all the supporting parents. The episode was aired all throughout November on our local channel OC16.
HELCO Demonstration/Grant
Because we went into complete remodeling of our club in order to turn it into a full blown program, our years budget greatly exceeded what we could afford. With that we applied for a HELCO grant, and graciously received $15,000 from the company. As a demonstration to show that we would not be letting them down this year, we organized a showcase of all the projects we have done in the past and plan on continuing this year. They seemed very impressed, and on the very same day presented us with our grant money. HELCO has been a generous and gracious sponsor of the Hilo High Robotics Club since it's founding.
BOE Meeting
The BOE Meeting waswas for all the members on the Board of Education, was was hosted at HHS on September 19th. All schools principals in the district attended, and our club set up a station and used this time to present the possibility to them of integrating a robotics course into their schools curriculum. It was a very busy evening and we got to meet many principals who we gained contact information from for future mentoring/outreaching reference.
Parent Meeting
The meeting’s purpose was to discuss our traveling plans and to inform parents of:
-what FIRST is-the benefits of taking part in FIRST
-the amount of time and dedication needed to make the season possible
-ways they can help us out
Here are some pictures from the meeting: