Origins
FIRST FRC Team 6476, Supernova Star Squad, is proud to call Coonabarabran home. Coonabarabran is a rural town with a population of a little over 3000 and is 150km from the nearest regional hub, Dubbo, and a 6-hour drive from Sydney the nearest major centre. Coonabarabran is aptly known as the “Astronomy Capital of Australia” because of our magnificent night sky and is home to Siding Springs Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO).
Coonabarabran High School (CHS) is the only high school in Coonabarabran and has a catchment radius of approximately 60km. Towards the end of 2016 CHS staff learned of FIRST and FRC through the Robots In The Outback (RITO) initiative. Opportunities to participate in such events are rare for a relatively small, rural, high school, so interest among students was relatively easy to capture given the novelty of building a robot. Our registration costs were covered by the RITO scholarship and the AAO was willing to provide us with access to their workshop and skilled staff. |
At the beginning of 2017, the team had very little, if any, experience with robotics, coding and web-design, and little experience working together on a project, we had also never encountered the term ‘coopetition’.
We had no idea about what we had just signed up to. |
A few years on...
My participation has given me the opportunity to learn many leadership and teamwork skills. It’s been such an amazing program to be a part of and has made me so excited for my future in STEM. I believed that STEM subjects were too difficult for me while choosing my HSC subjects. However, through my participation in the team I’ve learned a great deal about STEM, which I’ve realised is more than a ‘hard subject’, rather, is about creating solutions as a team striving toward a single common goal. The fruits of our robotics team have been enormously positive; the team has lifted the profile of STEM subjects across our school and community, and taken team members on an amazing journey from “Duck tape and Hope” to coding, and confidence. |
Each team member brought strengths to the team during the build process, at our first competition and beyond. Initially the team consisted primarily of senior students with a goal to encourage new members to join, teach new skills to the juniors and guide them through the process to ensure that the team is sustainable beyond 2018.
The team leaders that have been working to achieve this goal include Charlie, who has been helping team members learn how to develop and read code, which is pivotal to the longevity of the team. Jarrod has been identifying and encouraging the future leaders of the robotics team and leading by example during demonstrations in the community. Annabelle has been working with others on how to develop scouting methods and game strategies, build relationships and take people on the team journey. A small team led by Alé volunteered to help at the 2017 South Pacific Regional Competition. Most team members have also involved themselves with our numerous community engagements, speaking on the radio, crafting emails and articles, going on camera and so on, to share our story and promote STEM within our community. |
The whole team has embraced the concept of “Coopetition” as it resonates with our values. This was practiced at the competition by assisting other teams but has extended to the way in which the team works together, works with the mentors from the school and the AAO and how they approach their school work in general. Helping everyone with things, which may be a simple as inclusion in a group activity; taking everyone on the journey while striving for excellence. |
We consider ourselves very fortunate to have had the opportunity to partner with the AAO. This partnership formed through community contacts who prompted the team manager to approach the AAO who were more than willing to engage in a program that highlighted STEM and the involvement of females in STEM, and liked the idea of building a robot. This partnership has enabled us to utilise well-equipped workshops and equipment which have assist in building prototypes, game elements and the manufacture parts for the robot. As well as, access to knowledgeable mentors, which has since improved the entire teams understanding of STEM with explanations ranging from the iterative design process, to the importance of voltage regulators, and the uses of limit switches. Our weekly meetings with AAO staff mentors have answered a myriad of detail questions and solved problems quickly during game-season, while in the off-season help us better understand various things surrounding the building of the robot. These mentor sessions have been invaluable to the team regarding our learning about STEM and various other areas. We look forward to expanding this relationship with the AAO, and further involving school in this partnership into the future.
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OUTREACH
Living in a small town, with a community where STEM has remained a relatively alien concept with few understanding what it meant in the real world, we felt it was of great importance to involve our community with our journey through FRC and expose them to STEM. The best way to reach our community was through media, demonstrations at community events and groups within the community given the vast distances.
One of our first appearances in the broader community was on PRIME 7 Local News in early 2017 when we aired across the Central West, demonstrating our robot, explaining the competition, and sharing our experiences from build season. We also had the pleasure of partnering with our local disability provider, Breakthru, to demonstrate our robot to their clients and staff who thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to learn about our journey and drive the robot.
Shortly after our amazing experience at competition we wanted to thank our community and sponsors, as well as involve other regional schools in the FIRST initiatives. To show our appreciation for the community’s support, and detail our experiences illustrating a fuller picture of FRC and FIRST we published an article in the local newspaper, the Coonabarabran Times. We visited the AAO to thank them for their support, share our competition experiences with the staff and discuss other ways in which they could assist us into in the future. Additionally, having enjoyed the program and wanting more people to participate and develop as we had, we influenced our principal, Ms Doolan to use her communication channels with other schools to send an e-mail to all Western Region schools and the members of the Orana Science Teachers Association. Within the email we crafted it detailed: the key information about FIRST programs; our enjoyment and development from participating FRC; and helped and further information to any schools interested in FIRST initiatives. |
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