Camden-Frontiers Gear Grinders

This year our small country school ventured into the world of Robotic Building.  At first I was confused by what all this meant. My son is a junior at Camden-Frontier Schools and approached me with the paper work.  Being a mother that supports her children and encourages them to try things..I signed the paper work and waited. January came around and the season started. Michael, as well as other amazing students spent 6 weeks at the school building a robot. Its task was to stack totes and trash cans. My husband and I went to the first competition at Grand Valley State  Uninversity and witnessed it. I was immediatley won over and in awe that students in high school built these robots. Our awesome kids held their own against robotic teams that had been competing a lot longer.  They also helped a competing team write a program for their robot. Camden-Frontier brought home The Rookie All Star Award and we are all so very proud of these amazing kids. With this win, our children are eligable to take a presentation of their robot to Grand Rapids, Michigan with a chance to go to St. Louis.



The second competion took us to Mason, Michigan where our children did even better. We brought home the Gracious Professionalism Award.



Many people are in the dark about what it costs to give our kids this opportunity. I was one that didn't understand until Saturday at lunch time. Doing some research as I waited for semi-finals to start led me to First Robotics. www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc I was shocked and immeditely went to our teams coach and we talked for a good hour about the future of this program. This year our children recieved grants because they are a rookie team. This next season we will lose money needed to keep our children in this amazing program. Let's really think about it. Technology is only going to get more complicated as time keeps going. As we move into the future our children and grandchildren will need these techniques to make a life for themselves.  This program is a good thing. This program will keep our childrens minds growing and teach them things that this world is going to need. Things have changed so much since I was a child and teenager. What got my generation by is not going to work for the future adults. I'm asking for our community to come together to keep this outstanding opportunity alive for our students. Any amount you can give will be waiting to give our kids a good start this next robotic season. With the amount of money and work this takes..I am on a mission to start fundraising now. My son loves building robots, my other son is already talking about doing this as well. My daughters in elementary school were amazed and are ready to bot it up.  I have other parents at the school showing interest in letting their sons and daughters be a part of this program . I feel if we all come together, we can make this happen and contribute to this world adults that believe in team work and hard work. Thanks to all that help. I appreciate it, our kids appreciate it, our school and coaches do as well.