Award Submissions
FRC Impact Award Submission 2023
Long Essay
At Team 599, the Robodox, we build “more than robots''; we build future STEM leaders worldwide. Through efforts ranging from supporting FIRST teams in our community to hosting engineering panels around the world, every member unites under the same dream: to inspire people of all backgrounds to become efficient problem solvers who work together to engineer a brighter future.
FRC Chairman’s Award Submission 2022
Long Essay
Team 599 was founded in 2001. Since that day, the Robodox have been going full speed at everything FRC has to offer. From being a 2003 regional finalist in San Francisco to our latest win at the off season competition Tidal Tumble, we’ve continuously grown into a supportive team and community. With our outreach at middle schools for years and our winter coding camp, we have remained committed to passing on our passion for STEM to the community. With a dedicated team of 33 members and a reliable group of mentors and coaches from varying backgrounds, our team has come into 2022 with an optimistic mindset and a determination to embody the gracious professionalism that FIRST stands for.
FRC Chairman’s Award Submission 2019
Long Essay
Originally part of a five-team coalition, with sparse funding and few mentors, we, the Robodox, have surely come a long way from our humble origins at Granada Hills Charter High School. Since 2001, our team has aimed to provide each individual member with a strong foundation in STEM. Our team is renowned throughout our community in the San Fernando Valley for our expansive outreach program and our gracious professionalism. As we participate in both VEX and FIRST Robotics Competitions, we aim to showcase the wonderful world of STEM, and the ideals that both competitive communities have instilled in us. We take the idea of an initiative to heart; each member is responsible for all aspects of robot construction, from concept design and CAD models to fabrication and code. With forty-four members, we embody inclusiveness, diversity, and opportunity. We have a 19:25 ratio of females to males; a collection of twenty-one languages and 22 leadership positions. Most importantly, we are one team, and we all work towards the same dream: to inspire people of all backgrounds, to become efficient problem solvers, who work together to engineer a brighter future.
FRC Chairman’s Award Submission 2018
FRC Chairman’s Award Submission 2017
FRC Chairman’s Award Submission 2015
FRC Chairman’s Award Submission 2014
long essay
It happens every year. We screw the final bolts, finish the last system checks, and bag our robot with the number 599. The gratifying sound of the zip tie concludes six weeks of build season. And we put those countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears to the test as we enter the pits with the 2013 Radiologist ready to compete. As our programmer shouts, “Enabling Robot!” to signal the final system check, the entire team walks to the stands in anticipation and hopes that we’ve remembered to fill the pneumatics system with air. Often those doubts are quickly quelled by the sight of our autonomous scoring bonus goals, of the drive system successfully shifting gears, or even just of our robot having just moved. But on the other hand, sometimes those weeks of designing, fabricating, programming and driving seem shadowed by the occasionally broken drive chain or mini-robot with “magic smoke” that leaves us wondering if we will even move in the next match. While we’ve won our share of trophies, like those for Gracious Professionalism and Tournament Finalists at the 2013 FIRST Robotics Los Angeles Regional, to say we “won’’ does not begin to encompass the amount of perseverance and dedication that each of us gives even on Saturdays during build season. In 25 trips, we have never won a Robotics Competition.…but every year, we’ve won something much more important. Besides engineering outstanding robots, we engineer outstanding people. To “win” means more to us than the trophy at the end of the competition. What we “win” is the responsibility and initiative to thrive not only as engineers and independent thinkers but to meaningfully improve our society and ourselves.