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Why Robots? Why Greenwood? Why you?
GRIP is building Greenwood by partnering people, local businesses, and industries for the purpose of bringing science and technology to the forefront of the community. Using the field of robotics to help inspire and give direction to the youth of our area by providing a fun and exciting atmosphere for learning and building self confidence.
GRIP accomplishes this by providing two support groups. The first group is a robotics hobby club that meets monthly and can be comprised of anyone in the community that is interested. The second group will promote and support FIRST robotics competition teams for ages 9 to 18.
GRIP is made of many different parts of Greenwood coming together to form a partnership. The partners are people making a positive difference in the lives of others. GRIP is also made from local small businesses and schools to help grow the community into one that new industries are seeking out. The partners also come from area industries because they are helping to prepare Greenwood’s future work force. At the heart of GRIP is the youth of Greenwood. Kids with varying interests are partners because it takes much more than just a robot builder to win in today’s world class robotics competitions. It takes a team with all diversity and talents as a small business.
Robot competitions are sponsored by an organization called FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). FIRST combines the excitement and high adrenaline of a sport with all the aspects of a small business. To compete in this competition, A FIRST team needs a diversified team much like a business. Not only does the team need robot builders, machinists and designers. The team also needs managers, project planners, web site developers, graphics artists and even a few athletes. This type of robotic competition is the driving force for learning hard work and having fun. It gets people excited about being part of something extraordinary and the rewards are abundant for both the students as well as the adult mentors. The skills learned in this arena will be used throughout the student’s entire lives. FIRST is much more then building robots, its building people. Just the experience they gain gives them an edge that will help them understand the direction to take in their careers as well as how to compete in the work force. Being part of such a team that has too much to do, not much time to do it and not a good understating of what their doing really tests someone on all levels. This is how it is in today’s real world. Being on a FIRST team builds confidence and character. It helps one understand their abilities and their limitations. It pushes the importance of good communication and organization skills as will as professionalism and patience. When you’re on a team you’re all working together to win the trophy and when you are part of a FIRST robotics competition team the winners are the ones who show the most professionalism, team work, and positive impact to others and their community.
A New World: We live in a new world were technology is all around us and the technology itself has made the world smaller then it’s ever been. In the world’s commodities, innovation is one thing that we as a nation we must keep as an asset. As the developing world races to become the next leader in manufacturing and high tech services the asset of new and innovative ideas is getting harder to keep. To retain this valuable commodity of innovation we must teach the next generation the importance of the sciences technology and reorganize what is important in there education.
It’s Cool: GRIP is a place where learning is fun and being smart or knowledgeable in a subject is ok, in fact it’s cool.
Being Part of Something: GRIP is about being part of something extraordinary, because if we are not apart of something good then we wind up in something not so good. People today more then ever need to be apart of something where they are needed, where they can make a difference where they can become passionate and share their excitement with others. GRIP is more then a robotics club it’s about being a partner in something extraordinary.
Dyke Dean 12/20/06
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