Metal and Soul FIRST Team #2604

Metal and Soul, FRC Team 2604, is from Capac, a small rural town in the thumb of Michigan. The team formed in 2008, and introduced FIRST to St. Clair County. We see participation in FIRST as a scholastically meaningful alternative to non-academic extra-curricular opportunities.

Over the past six years we've developed a reputation as a strongly driven team. Metal and Soul has earned many awards, yet our greatest accomplishment has been that all 18 of our graduated seniors continued on to college, 16 of them for STEM careers. One even earned a robotics engineering degree.

While FIRST is about inspiring students with technology and science, Capac's FIRST program enjoys valuable partnerships with the school district, legislators, and industry. To give back, each student is required to earn 30 service hours. The team also volunteer's time cleaning the roadside leading into Capac via our county's Adopt a Road program and donating Teddy bears to FIRST Responders. In addition, we continue to work in partnership with one of our sponsors, Keihin, by collecting their returnables. In return, Keihin generously donates the proceeds to the team. The team enters floats in the homecoming parades & our UL Safety ambassadors have taught fire and online safety to all of Capac's K-4th graders. The team conducted very successful Hands-on Science Saturdays where hundreds of K-7 grade students were shown how fun science and technology can be.

Metal & Soul works hard at forming new teams, In 2013 & 2014, helped with the formation of12 new teams Metal and Soul enjoys spreading the message of FIRST and created a presentation targeting school officials and went on a road show. The presentation initiated the formation of several teams. Metal and Soul has continued to provide programming, supplies and other assistance to teams each year. For new teams, we help them gain financial assistance by putting them in contact with available grants and sharing our fundraising efforts. We continue mentoring them through their build and competition season. Metal and Soul continues to work with and looks forward to a lasting relationship with these new teams.

The team annually participates in Capac's Relay for Life, Maker Faire Detroit and the MACUL Technology Showcase in Lansing. We participated in the very first U.S. Be Very Afraid eXtra event. A website and podcasts, of the "BVA eXtra", documenting the student projects and use of technology, are still being used by Dr. Heppell so that many thousands around the world can be inspired. We continue our relationship with Dr. Heppell through emails and Skype, helping to take FIRST to the UK's schools. Our partnership with Dr. Heppell made us one of the central features at the BETT Shows in London, putting FIRST and our mission to promote STEM education and careers on the minds of over 30,000 educators and policy makers in attendance.
At home, Metal and Soul has started 4 Jr. FLL team at Capac Elementary School and an FLL team at Capac Middle School. We advocate at every opportunity including MACUL Showcases, the 21st Century Learning Symposiums, the SC4 Stem Conference, all of the 800+ School Boards in Michigan at the Annual MASB Fall Conference, SCC EDA, Yale Medilodge, Imlay City McDonald's and other businesses and organizations as well as demos at high schools across the thumb and state.

Our local community has also been a very supportive partner. The local papers published several stories chronicling Metal and Soul's rookie year. The coverage was so pervasive that the local paper, the Tri-City Times, ranked Metal and Soul's rookie season second in the paper's annual top ten stories of the year review. Metal and Soul collaborates with many other teams on recruiting activities aimed at Michigan School Boards targeting starting new teams. Participation as UL Safety Ambassadors and the success of our Hands-on Science Saturday's has put Science and Technology, as well as FIRST Robotics. prominently within our schools and community. We are honored with the requests to participate in local events and educational forums. The Team hosted a FIRST 2014 Kick-off in January, offering classes and a quick build for interested teams.
We partnered with U of D Mercy to bring their Robotics and Mechatronics program out to Capac, showcasing the excitement of STEM careers. The Team also presented to St. Clair County Community College (SC4) in June 2012 to start the formation of a STEM initiative, St. Clair County STEM Initiative, a partnership aimed at promoting college and university involvement in schools beginning in Kindergarten. Our STEM Initiative has taken off to now include the St Clair County EDA, local and State Colleges and Universities, local and statewide businesses and Legislatures. As partners we are working to promote FIRST and STEM Careers throughout our County and State, and have presented at the 2013 SC4 STEM Conference. We are working to gain Internship opportunities for our students as part of this Initiative. We believe this will strongly impact a student pursuing a STEM career.

Through our partnership, Keihin has provided the team with training in the 6 S's. The company also gave the team a plant tour showing industrial robots that they utilize in their assembly operations. Our demonstrations to the employees are exciting for the team as we are able to share what they are supporting. The team recently purchased Teddy Bears and provided them to the local Fire Departments and Ambulance services. These bears, wearing a courage badge, are intended to comfort children in traumatic situations that the first responders come across in their daily work
It had been 6 years since Capac had conducted a career Day so the team spearheaded the "Capac Career EXPO" this past fall. Students were able to visit with a variety of careers and colleges during their lunch hour and collect valuable information to share with their parents. Students and presenters completed surveys following the event to help us make continual improvements. These surveys indicate the EXPO was a success for all involved and plans are already underway to make it bigger and better.
Capac High School hosts the team's build season. There, the team has access to computers, band saws & drill presses - just about anything needed to build a competition robot. Students learn how to use the equipment safely and make a significant number of the parts themselves.
Through these partnerships, the team is able to offer the Robotics program at no expense to the team members. This has been true for all seven years of the team's existence.

With the current economic challenges, the team continues to update key points of our business plan including fundraising, partnership development, and new student recruitment. The team assembled a sponsorship package to distribute to businesses for establishing new sponsors. The loss of 2 key sponsors last year challenged us to put our business plan to the test. We were successful at restoring and growing our funding through new sponsors and grants as well as regaining our 2 lost sponsors.

Not only is our team growing, but the number of girls has increased as well. With our team now made up of 33% girls, Metal and Soul continues to encourage girls to not only join FIRST, but to pursue STEM careers.
Understanding that growing the program is a major initiative of FIRST, the team has aimed its sights on education worldwide through Legislatures, educators and all who can help promote and advance STEM programs. With this opportunity, over 800 School Boards of Education were exposed to FIRST. We continue to demonstrate this phenomenal program to Legislators and the rest of the school districts in Michigan and become the state with the most FRC teams. Our work with Dr. Heppell continues to bring FIRST to all of the UK schools with hopes of a UK Regional event. Team 2604, has always understood that FIRST is about more than just building robots, it's about building people, encouraging higher education in the STEM fields and, as a team, having a crucial role in our community's education and development. Team 2604 continues to look to the future, while enjoying and learning from our past experiences. We are determined to remain a driving force in STEM education and FIRST.