The Firebirds pride ourselves on the impact we have in our community, through a variety of outreach programs, in an effort to inspire our team members, school, local area, and women in STEM all around the world!
TeamIn an effort to make our team as accessible as possible, the Firebirds are open to any and all members of our school with zero additional cost for tool training, team t-shirts, or our traditional “Late Shop” dinners each Friday.
As a team entirely composed of high-school aged women, the vast majority of our members join with little-to-no previous mechanical or programming experience. Recognizing the importance of establishing proper technique and standard practices, every new member undergoes tool training from mentors and upperclassmen, helping our team remain safe and sustainable! Speaking of sustainability! In an effort to ensure each new generation is equipped with the knowledge and skills they need in order to have a successful season, every sub-team is comprised of both upper and underclassmen. We also document everything on our team google drive. And of course, our team discord facilitates discussions between students, mentors, and alumni alike allowing for frequent communication and lighthearted conversation. |
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School CommunityIf you’ve ever been too the Mount St. Joseph Academy open house, then you’ve probably seen our shop and talked with some of our amazing school representatives! By showcasing our shop through tours and robot demonstrations, we aim to connect with students of all backgrounds, regardless of their previous experience in STEM.
We also established a new STEM week initiative at our school, and with activities featuring daily STEM facts, science scavenger hunts and robot demonstrations we were able to reach our entire school community, and look forward to expanding next year. Curriculum wise, we founded the only engineering course at our school, Principles of Engineering Design, which cultivates technical, electrical, programming, and CAD skills through project based learning, preparing students to create fully autonomous systems. The class allows students who are interested in STEM, yet not available for after school robotics, to still gain a thorough understanding of the basics. We recognize that as a private school that there are some financial barriers to joining our team. In an effort to make STEM more accessible in our community, we founded our school’s first STEM based scholarship! Entirely funded by our team (primarily through our annual Quizzo event), the Bob Foell scholarship, financially supports one young woman interested in STEM in each class year throughout her entire high school experience. |
Local / RegionalFor the past five years our members have designed, developed, and directed Camp Innovate, a two-week long summer camp meant to engage young women from 5th-9th grade in the world of STEM. [See our Camp Innovate Page for more details!]
While serving as role models of gracious professionalism, we also mentor two FLL teams and assist four others. We attend meetings and competitions, encouraging the students to develop programming skills, presentation etiquette, competition strategy and more! Since 2010, our team has empowered female members of FIRST teams all across the region with our annual off-season competition. GirlP.O.W.E.R., which stands for Preparing Outstanding Women Engineers through Robotics, separates itself from other competitions by requiring all teams run with all drive-teams. [See our GirlPOWER page for more details!] We also do multiple events with our sponsors each year, including a visit with TAIT Towers and Kenvue, and running panels at Comcast! |
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