The M&Ms are two of the most important foundational items of our program.  Mentors are people from all backgrounds and disciplines who volunteer their time and knowledge to help our students develop skills needed to be career ready.  Each mentor works with a different sub team helping students become passionate experts.  Monetary donations allow the team to function.  During build season, we need to budget to purchase items to design, build, and program the robot.  During competition season, we need to budget to pay for each district event, transportation, hotels, and food for the students.  During the off season, we need to budget for outreach and community service projects.

 

You can impact the lives of the CyberCard students several ways. By mentoring the students, you help them learn the skills needed to be career ready.  The second way to help our team is to sponsor a student.  Each student must pay dues to participate in this program to help cover their expenses. Our students are represented by a wide variety of socioeconomic classes and ethnicities.   At SHS we pride ourselves on our diversity.  Our students are represented by a wide variety of racial ethnicities including a 5.5% multiracial, 7% black, 16.2% Asian, 13.4% Hispanic, and 57.9% white population.  We have refugee students who are from Syria, Iraq, the Congo and surrounding countries in Africa, as well as a large Burmese population.  Unfortunately, over 60% of our population receives free and reduced lunch and many more are just outside the bubble. 

 

Similarly, you can be a team sponsor.  Each team sponsor has the opportunity to not only share STEM with the next generation of leaders, but also has multiple ways to be featured during competitions and outreach events. There are several needs that I would love to see fulfilled at SHS and we believe FIRST Robotics can help our students fulfill those needs!  Your tax-deductible support of the CyberCards gets us closer every day!

 

For more information, visit our website at www.southportrobotics.org or contact frc1529@gmail.com.