Chadwick D. McNab Memorial Scholarship

In eighth grade, I decided to join the high school robotics team as a useful introduction to programming and engineering design, as well as a fun experience to meet new people. What I discovered was that much of the organization was student-led, and the adult mentors were very hands-off. I found out during my first year that we were short on experience in several crucial areas of the team. Because of this, we struggled to perform together as a group. The following year, I stepped up and decided to bring things together. One of the first things I did was take charge of the financial aspects of the team and create a fundraising committee to raise money for parts, tools, and other resources. Even though this was something new to me, I taught myself how to apply for grants and reach out for sponsorships and donations. Using my writing and organization skills, I was able to coordinate a spreadsheet with a master list of all possible grants and sponsors to contact regarding potential funding and support. I conducted regular meetings with a fundraising committee to check that our team was putting in sufficient effort toward fundraising and sponsorship outreach. These skills have been passed down over my four years of high school and remain with the team now that I have graduated. Another area of improvement was in our team's ability to communicate common engineering technology concepts in electronics, programming, and product design. Having a very limited array of engineering and technology classes to gain knowledge and experience from, I sought out YouTube tutorials and online courses to help me be better equipped to take the initiative in our robotics projects. With an already small attendance roster for our team that first year, I took it upon myself to supervise the construction of our electronics board and main robot structure and transfer information between teams, which included the programming team that utilized Java and provided API libraries to code the robot's movement and task performance objectives. I was able to learn on the job and communicate the instructions to those with less experience for a team effort. In just two years, we raised over $21,000 in grants and expanded our team from ten to thirty members actively helping make our team the best it could be. I was able to gain confidence in an area that had originally been completely foreign to me, and I am inspired to lead others in having an enriching experience learning about STEM and the world of robotics. Working in engineering and technology constantly inspires me to push myself out of my comfort zone and work to create things from ideas in my head. Through working with robotics, I have gained both soft and technical skills that allow me to take initiative and produce applications and projects in my college career. I am excited to learn more that will help me improve and level up my creations and make a lasting impact on important issues in my community.