Building Team the Heat It Up and Keep It Cool Way

Heat It Up and Keep It Cool: Teambuilding and Transitioning

by Teresa Smalley

Our team, Heat it Up and Keep it Cool Robotics, and its five members, have just ended our fourth year. We have graduated FIRST Lego League and are now FIRST Tech Challenge Team 8496 starting our rookie year! We have also added a sixth team member. 

During the past four years we have spent an average of 15 to 20 hours per week together. For the past three three years we have been an Ambassador Team for the Los Angeles Region. This year we were one of two teams to win the Los Angeles Regional Championships, but no promotions were made to the World Festival from Southern California. We instead were invited to attend the International Open in Toronto, Canada. What an honor and an unbelievably great experience. In addition, we do outreach activities including mentoring two FLL teams and robotics demos at local monthly events. 

Our program runs year round, we meet during the school year and during school breaks as well. We have become very close friends-more like a family. Because of how we define our priorities and the time we have spent together, we have been able to develop and internalize a team philosophy, develop our identity and most importantly our strength. Our philosophy, much like FIRST’s core values, states that, “Although we like awards, what we learn is more important.” If we set goals and strive to achieve them, become better problem solvers, gain knowledge, learn new skills, grow as individuals, become better team members and better members of society, we are winners regardless of what rewards may or may not be received.

We started to develop this philosophy our first year, when we decided that we would take core values “road trips” to help us get to know each other. We have been all over Southern California either driving to events or on outings just to have fun. On our trips we talked about FIRST core values and what they mean and how to implement them in robotics and in our own lives. Over time we found that practicing FIRST’S Core Values to be the strength of our team. We strive to practice graciousness, respect, tolerance and individual responsibility with each other and with other teams. We feel we discovered the essence of FIRST: we enjoy learning, competing fiercely, and having fun. 

As a result of our experience in FLL we have all become determined that we are going into some form of science or engineering. Entering high school we are starting to prepare for college and making plans for our futures, and we all agree that we want to make a difference in the world. 

As we start our journey into FTC we are both excited and nervous. We can’t wait to start learning more about design, programming and most of all to start meeting FTC teams in the LA region and hopefully from around the world, too. For more information on our team please visit us on facebook or our website.