FIRST team number: 1011 Application for NASA Grant 2005-2006 School Information: Sonoran Science Academy       2255 W. Ina Rd       Tucson, Arizona, 85741 Principal: Mr. Adem Oksuz       Email: adam@sonoranacademy.org       Phone: 520-797-9836 Fax: 520-572-0586 We are a charter school open and free to the public, located in an urban area. Approximately 350 students are enrolled with 0 percent receiving free or reduced lunch. Primary Contact Information: Mrs. Leslie Lintner       Phone: 520-909-7227       Evening phone: 520-225-0640       Fax: 520-572-0586       Email Address: leslielintner@aol.com       Parent Volunteer School Liaison Alternate Contact Information: Mr. William Bennett       Phone: 520-743-8062   Evening Phone: 520-743-8062       Email Address: bill@wizardofaz.net       Parent Mentor CRUSH 1011 General Manager Corporate Mentorship/Partnership Information: Mr. William Bennett       IBM Research Staff  Member       4456 W Camino Nuestro Tucson, Arizona, 85745 Phone: 520-743-8062 Fax: 520-572-0586 Email Address: bill@wizardofaz.net General Information:  Students from these additional schools are also part of this team: o Tucson High School o Ironwood Ridge High School o Canyon Del Oro High School o 2 home-school students.  Our team has secured the support of our school administration  We are planning to attend the following events: o Week 2: Arizona (registered and paid) o Week 5: Las Vegas (registered, payment pending additional team funding)  We are planning on attending the NASA regional even if we do not receive a NASA sponsorship.  We found out about the sponsorship opportunity from: Celia Cordova NASA-Dryden.  Our team has participated in FIRST for: 4 years (including the current year)  We estimate active FIRST participation from: o 20 students o 1 teachers o 8-10 mentors  We will have o Dedicated shop space at the school o Metalworking equipment o Woodworking equipment o Welding equipment o Mechanical engineering support o Software engineering support o Limited volunteer machining support o Autocad mentors o 3D Studio mentors o Easy access to test/practice area  We will not have o Complete game field o Fully funded travel Essay Question Question 1: Why are you participating? CRUSH 1011 regards the FIRST Regional Competition as one gauge of our overall program success. This will be our 4th year running the program and participating in regional and informal competitions. We define success in the following way. 1. Our ability to generate interest in FIRST and CRUSH within our school and community in robotics, technology and math with an active community outreach program helping to create new FIRST teams in our area. 2. Our ability to attract new team members and retain valuable experienced members from year to year. 3. Our effectiveness in generating financial support from our community partners, community at large, school, students and their families. 4. Our ability to recruit and retain highly qualified technical mentors. 5. Our ability to complete our building goals each competitive season creating a robot that competes successfully and exhibits unique technology. 6. Our ability to effectively compete using our students full potential and resources within the FIRST venue. Each year we have succeeded in all these aspects. In addition, as regarded by school administration, we have progressed from a trial-pilot status to full commitment and enthusiastic support. Finally, we have directly observed the excitement and engagement that FIRST Robotics has created in our students. Question 2: How will you organize your team? CRUSH 1011 is a year round program. Outside of the competition season, including summer, we meet two days a week in the afternoon and two Saturdays a month for a full work day, for a total of approximately 30 hours per month, not including field trips, outreach events, and fund raising activities. The main focus during these months is bringing new members up to speed byand teaching and refiningbuilding and increasing base skills in design, mechanics, tools and machining, electronics, programming, and project management. Also during this non-competitiveion part of the year, we invest in community outreach activities, as both as participants and organizers., Additionally we work at as well as encouraging the new teams here in Tucson, organizenew team encouragement, and informal competitions, coordinate fund raising events, and solicit corporate sponsorship and identify and apply for relevant grants solicitation. During the competition build season, we meet every day, totaling about 30 hours a week. Not all students or all mentors attend every meeting, but each student member participates in at least half of the total hours the team meets. Our structural organization includes the following major components:  Team administration and management o *Team-School Liaison o *Budget/Financial Planning o Fundraising/Grants/Corporate Relations o Community Relations/Outreach/New team engagement o FIRST organization participation/engagement o Web presence for sponsors and supporters  Technology o Robot overall design o Mechanical component design o Tools, machining, fabrication o Software and OI controls o Electronics/wiring o Academic foundations o Project management/ Procurement /Scheduling  Communication and Team image o Team uniforms o Team web presence/photography o Team newsletter o Team spirit * Excepted as noted with *, all aspects are student/mentor collaboration activities. Question 3: What is your budget? 2005-2006 Budget  Supplemental Robotic Parts & Technology $4,000 aluminum, steel, and plastic raw materials and parts, electronics, wiring, etc for prototype and competition robots  Shop and Technology Expenses $3,000 Small Power Tools and Hand Tools Including drills, sockets, wrenches, saws, drill bits, grinders sanders, tool boxes and storage, etc.  One Time Shop Tooling  $4,000 Air Compressor with 29 gal. Tank, Milling Machine, Horizontal Metal Band Saw, Lathe, Solder Station, Wet/Dry 6" Grinder, Electronic Equipment and Pneumatic Tools.  Parts & Shop Consumables $2,000. Hardware, filters, replacement grinder wheels, sanding belts, batteries, cleaning supplies, storage for small parts etc.  6 X 10 Enclosed Utility Trailer $3,000  Community Outreach Program $4,000 includes Team Literature $750. Includes paper and printing of brochures, flyers and business cards for media kits. Presentation Materials $250. Includes, presentation boards, art materials, set equipment for skit. Team Uniforms $1,000. Up to date matching shirts for presentation and competition for all members of CRUSH. Team Spirit & Promotional Materials $500. Materials used for promotion of our team e.g. postage for mailing of team literature, spirit implements like pompoms for competitive events, promotional trinkets for competition. Transportation $1,500. Van rental on a daily basis when presentation team is more than 4 students. Approximate cost is $100 per day. CRUSH Sponsored Social Events/Outreach $600. Includes events like cookouts for new team members and families.  Competitive Fees & Travel $15,700: FIRST Phoenix Regional Competition $6,000, FIRST Las Vegas Regional Competition Competitive Fee $4,000. Competition ground travel and Airfare $3700. Includes van rental for regional events. Miscellaneous local travel and informal competition fees: $2000.  Accommodations & Food $6,000. Includes hotel stay for 20 students at each competitive event plus food stipend. Total $41,700 Our school underwrites our budget and provides the majority of our funding, but they expects our team to fundraise raising and find sponsorship efforts to offset the expenses to the greatest extent possible. The student club raises about $ 2,000 per year.  We expect to raise about $6,000 in tax credit contributions. We also receive $5,000 from ITT-Tech and about $3,000 from IBM. We usually received about $3000 in unsolicited personal contributions. We also have several pending grants for our community outreach and trailer that have not committed as of 11/07/2005. Question 4: Who will mentor your students? Our technical and project mentors are the following: Bill Bennett - IBM, Computer software and Electronics and Team General Manager Wesley Green – Lockheed Martin, Mechanical Design and Fabrication Michael Eckelbarger -  Honeywell, Engineering and Configuration   Joann Hawes -  Programming Chris Hanson -  Raytheon, Programming Michael Lintner - Tooling and Shop Management Mustafah Calick – Sonoran Science Academy instructor, CAD and Mechanical Design. All of our mentors take their time commitment and personal commitment to our program very seriously. They have a large impact upon our students and program. Each mentor heads a subgroup and helps plan activities which engage students in brainstorming, design, project planning and resources, plan resources, fabrication and testing protocols. They help to keep our lab and students safe. We believe in and practice “I do you watch” and “you do I watch”. Our mentors with the guidance of FIRST help our students realize their potential and reach their goals and aspirations. Our mentors serve as fantastic role models as well. We are proud to have the 2005 Arizona Woodie Flower's Award recipient as the head of our mentor program. William Bennett is a great example of the type of professional mentors FIRST attracts to its programs! Question 5: How does FIRST fit with your local curriculum? FIRST and CRUSH 1011 have had a large impact on our school SSA. We have given them a hands-on program where students can try practical applications of curriculum taught within their math and science classes. CRUSH 1011 is a curriculum-based club. Additionally, SSA Screaming Eagle Lego League will be attending the FIRST Arizona regional under the direction of one of our senior FIRST Robotics team members. CRUSH has also been instrumental in bringing a for-college-credit technology course from Pima Community College that will be taught to our students. Giving students a strong curriculum that is supported by extra curricular activities like FIRST and Lego League are working at SSA. We received the highest rating of EXCELLING given by the Arizona Board of Education. SSA attributes that in part to programs like CRUSH 1011 Robotics program and FIRST. Question 6: What facilities will you use? CRUSH has a dedicated labshop space at the school, well equipped for FIRST projects, including a metal lathe, milling machine, grinders, sanders, saws, a good collection of hand power tools, electronics prototyping and test equipment,  three stationary computers and two laptop computers for CAD, 3D Animation, robot software development, web design, internet access, and document preparation and viewing. We also have a network of community supporters, including “at home” machine shops, commercial donated support, and support from instructors and students at the Machine Tool Technology department at Pima Community College Question 7: School administration support? Support from our school administration has grown steadily over the years CRUSH has been in existence. In our first year we had minimal funding, no dedicated space at school, and no tools. We now have the strongest encouragement from administration, dedicated space, financial commitment, and curriculum involvement. We have expanded the robotics program to include a formalized FIRST Lego League team for middle school students, and informal lego robotics at younger levels. The school often cites our program as “k through 12 robotics” and we’re getting close to making that a literal reality. Question 8: Explain how you will mentor a rookie team: We organized, sponsored, and hosted a Robolympics event in September with the purpose of spreading interest and enthusiasm for FIRST Robotics. We gave workshops on FIRST and FIRST Team creation and management. Together with support from several other teams in Arizona, we conducted a mini-competion with good public attendance - about 100 spectators as well as newspaper and video media coverage. This event was a major factor in the decision of two Tucson schools to create new teams this year - Team 1798 from Flowing Wells High School and  Team 1828 from Vail High School. These schools have since attended some of our meetings, and we will attend their kickoff events starting next week. We have provided them with a complete communication network including email addresses and telephone numbers. We have offered to help train mentors, give presentations and demos for recruiting purposes, offered to loan mentors, provided tours and time in our shop for students to observe and even participate and we are facilitating a combined fundraising effort in the next month. We will continue to do this for any team requesting our assistance whenever possible. We also continue to support the FIRST Arizona Planning committee in by participating as a committee member, and by hosting FIRST events like our ROBOLYMPICS. Please see our website at www. crushl011.com for more information on our activities and the media recognition we have generated during the last year to help encourage and support new teams. Question 9: Explain your matching funds (min. of  $6000): Daisy Corporation Sonoran Science Academy $21,000 Adem Oksuz 520-797-9836 ITT-Tech $5,000 Timothy Riordan (520) 408-7488 IBM $2984 Cathy Carlisle Community Relations Program Manager 520-799-2209 Question 10: Have you integrated FIRST in your school curriculum? Yes. Participation on the CRUSH Robotics team is a credit class for students that elect it as such. It is a science elective, and students are measured on a customized blend of technical activities and learning, tailored to each students’ interests on the team. We have written several pending grants for robotics and engineering curriculum that will be added to next year’s course offerings at SSA. Classes regularly use Lego Mind Storms in their science classes as well. Finally part of SSA charter is to attend International Competitive events. FIRST offers us this opportunity as well. Question 11: What additional information do you have? We are a growth oriented team on the move. WE BUILD MORE THAN ROBOTS! We are actively engaging our community, demonstrating wherever we can that technology, math, and science are an essential part of our children's education. We sincerely believe that programs like FIRST help create excitement and interest, provide students with great role models, create worthwhile goals to aspire to and provide a comprehensive guide to facilitate a robotics program within schools around the world. We are networking with other groups working to promote the same message, such as the University of Arizona Engineering Ambassador's Club and the Tucson Children's Museum. We have been effective in creating a media presence. CRUSH and FIRST have been featured on the local evening news at least three times, as well as in numerous newspaper articles. We are working at finding, facilitating and fostering new rookie teams in the Tucson area, and this year had the success of helping two new teams form, both are registered for the Arizona Regional. We have an exemplary group of mentors. We are a great example of what a FRIST team can do in their school, community and at FIRST. NASA sponsorship will further enhance our credibility and NASA could use our team to demonstrate how successful a partnership between education, corporate America, US governmental agencies and private philanthropic organizations can be. We plan to submit for Chairman's Award this year and we are very optimistic about our chance of earning that honor. We sincerely hope the ITT-TECH & NASA CRUSH 1011 will prove to be an outstanding investment!