Mr. David Frederick has been an astoundingly devoted mentor for team 1895 for three years- joining the team when his daughter, Leah, was a freshman. Over these three years, Mr. Frederick has unquestioningly given countless hours of patience in moments of frustration and helpfulness in moments of despair. It is doubtful that our team could have competed successfully in the last two years without his help. We can associate mentors from various companies with our robot- but Mr. Frederick’s silhouette will forever remain in the lines of code and the tightened screws which hold the machine together.

Mr. Frederick has always been present, helpful, and encouraging over the course of the past three years- from the early season meetings of brainstorming and idea-presentations all the way through the late night, last minute, and frantic fix-it-now sessions immediately before shipping. Impressively, for his three years of participation Mr. Frederick has attended every meeting, always early and ready to go. Even at home on his own time Mr. Frederick proves his devotion to the team: he spends late nights reading books on java programming to dispel any ignorance he had possessed of the subject. He monitors all rule changes and updates- even out of season- and notifies the team of any changes. Aside from his selfless donation of time, Mr. Frederick has also donated a laptop and a drill to the team, among other personal items. Mr. Frederick’s enthusiasm is reflected in his daughter who, as a junior, is a co-project lead. Already planning ahead, Mr. Frederick has informed us that he fully intends to continue mentoring after his daughter’s graduation. Without any doubt, Mr. Frederick is our most devoted and important mentor.

Surprisingly, Mr. Frederick’s value transcends his astonishing devotion; he is also very experienced and knowledgeable. This year as the season began, new students took over responsibilities that had previously always been held by students who have graduated. Upon this transition, we found that knowledge in some areas was certainly lacking. Unfortunately, one of the problems encountered was that we were absolutely clueless about how to program a robot in java. To our relief, Mr. Frederick has some experience in java and has read a number of books on the language. He was able to teach students the basics involved in java programming and monitored their coding attempts. With his help, students were able to program the robot in a language that was brand new to them. In addition to the programming, he also taught newer students the function of the soldering iron and the proper technique for wiring. Mr. Frederick has also been of great help to the mechanical aspect of the project, presenting remedies to failed ideas and helping to solve last minute issues every year.

On the front of maturity and responsibility, Mr. Frederick has the mission of keeping our team in line. Younger team members have a tendency to act irresponsibly around equipment and pass time in less than productive ways; Mr. Frederick invents useful projects to help train these younger members about safety and proper usage of the machines, so that they can be involved in every step of this competition. Safety can slip our minds in the intense, season-changing meetings that are held fairly regularly- but Mr. Frederick never fails to remind us to wear our safety glasses, turn off the power supply, and release the air pressure before working near the robot.

Mr. Frederick, to our team, is the ever-present reminder of what we should strive to be. He is dedicated, knowledgeable, and responsible. For the past three years- and we hope for many, many years to come- he has been, and will be, our most valued mentor.