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.

Jenny Hayward is everyone’s mom! Helping with the team for the last three years, Jenny has been an essential part of the team especially this year. Due to the economic strain, the team mentors have had trouble balancing work obligations with their team volunteering time. We also lost our head mentor due to family obligations. With inconsistent help from our mentors, the head sponsor has relied heavily on Jenny’s help with duties that are usually filled by our mentors such as supervising students when using power tools and hunting for the elusive and critical robotic part.

In addition to fillinga i n for t h e engineering mentors, she continued to help with her normal duties. Due to the lack of help this year, the team sponsor was more involved with the robotic construction and relied on Jenny to help with publicity and spirit crew activities. With her lifetime involvement in sports and her love for our high school, Jenny has wonderful suggestions and the students can rely on her honest opinions. She contacts parents to coordinate snacks and meals for feeding the hungry team during those long construction hours. The team is excited when she provides the food because Jenny is an awesome cook!

Jenny is always willing to provide transportation for the team. She often takes students home after meetings. She drove the team to Richmond for the Kick-off in January. Loading her car with tools and suitcases for the Regional Events, she has provided the critical overnight supervision of the team for the last three years, changing her personal schedule in order to help.

Jenny finds jobs for students who are not busy. Assigning clean up duties to students in an equitable manner, she is essential in keeping the work area organized and clean so that it is not left for the school custodian or the team school sponsor. She is often one of the last adults to leave ensuring that everything is in good order. Jenny has helped with the acquiring of funds for the team. As an employee of Scitor, her family donated money to the team which in turn was matched by Scitor.

Always cheerful and willing to listen, Jenny is available to the students despite feeling under the weather due to health issues. She gives of her time over and beyond robotics. She helps with other organizations within the school such as the athletic boosters and the academic team. She hand-knitted a scarf for a robotic team member’s birthday and helped another student in the shop when he needed to cut wood for his science fair project. Osbourn High School is fortunate to have this lovely lady as a volunteer. Our robotics team is proud to call her Team MOM!

Three years ago in 2005, a Lockheed Martin employee approached Physics teacher Mrs. Susan Perryman with the idea of starting a robotics team at Osbourn High School. Mrs. Perryman's acceptance of the challenge not only changed her life, but hundreds of other lives. She believed that all Osbourn students should be given the opportunity to be a part of such an extraordinary event. That first year, about 20 members joined. In competition that year, we won first place for the "Website Award." At the town council meeting that spring, our team presented the robot to the council with enthusiasm, and recognized Mrs. Perryman as the catalyst that sparked the fun in robotics.

During the 2006-2007 season, Mrs. Perryman worked tirelessly to find sponsors and gain the attention of local politicians. As a result, we earned a couple of new sponsors–Ted Lilly and Aurora Flight–and some politicians went to watch the competition in Richmond. She also spent much of her time budgeting and ordering parts and tools for the robot. Because of the progress and interest in robotics, the MCPS Education Foundation granted Mrs. Perryman and our team $10,000. Her efforts to get more people involved were also successful, because the club had increased 40 members, which was double the participation of the previous year.

This past October was Osbourn's annual Camp Eagle, in which high school students teach elementary students about science. Mrs. Perryman suggested that we present the robot to the kids, and let them control the robot. The kids enjoyed the presentation. As a result, Mrs. Perryman has encouraged the development of LEGO leagues at the local elementary school.

Unfortunately during this time, Mrs. Perryman's brother and mother became sick. But Mrs. Perryman never displayed a sign of weakness or wavered in her support of the team. She always gave her best effort, whether at robotics, with the academic team, or in her Advanced Placement (AP) Physics classes. In addition, she has two sons who take up a lot of her time. Her younger son is studying to be a professional orchestral bassist, and her older son is studying music composition. But despite all of the constraints on her time, she opts to help her students no matter what it takes. She often stays after school to help her students with their homework. After that, she usually gets a quick bite to eat and heads off to robotics, unaware of how long she might spend on the robot. When meetings were late, she would buy pizzas so we would not be hungry. She has often stayed so late that the school's janitors turned on the building's alarm without knowing she was still inside.

Mrs. Perryman and our team discussed the Woodie Flowers nominee, and decided that this year it would be Matt Laszewski, our head mentor. She was full of compliments for Matt, and was excited that Matt has been here for all three years of our team's existence. When a team member went to interview him, he refused to be nominated. He pointed out that Mrs. Perryman spends twice as much time on robotics as he does. He also said the reason he's been here for the past three years is because of the commitment Mrs. Perryman constantly exemplifies.

The team is nominating Mrs. Perryman without her knowledge. This is the least we can do to reward her for all of the diligent and thankless support and effort she has given the team over the past three years, as well as thank her for influencing so many of us along the way.

After the team had been working in quiet concentration for over five minutes, only one person was bold enough to break the silence. We should form a didgeridoo band, chuckled mentor Darren Cole as he shook a piece of plexi-glass. Cole's creative and humorous approach, doubled with his expertise in mechanics and leadership, made him invaluable to the success of the team.

Cole, a mechanical engineer at Lockheed Martin, used his people skills to spur progress without being too technical for high school physics students and his engineering skills to help the drive train group and eventually all other groups. Cole/s jolts of comic relief were crucial in easing the stress and tension of building a robot.

"I remember one time when he measured something for the mock up wrong, and I corrected him," recalled Nick Bailey, co-manager of the shooter team. "He said it was a good thing he had a high school student to correct his arithmetic."

Engineers, while often brilliant, do not always give straight and easy answers. Cole realized he was guiding a group of 35 teenagers and applied the "KIS" theory of engineering ("Keep it simple") to his day-to-day leadership and answered any question, no matter how simple or trivial, and gave straightforward answers without unnecessary engineer jargon or sarcasm. Cole made sure students understood their tasks.

"We were connecting the two ends of the conveyer belt, and after messing up twice, Cole told us that we were professional shoe cobblers by now," recalled team manager Brian Reily.

Cole"s expertise was vital in the overall design of the robot. He thought of new strategies to combat the problems faced in the design and construction phase of building the robot. Never one to shy away from grandiose ideas, he loved to order numerous parts in order to test out his different ideas. It was guaranteed he would have a list of new parts to order at the next meeting.

His positive attitude never wavered despite the road blocks, and his constant presence at team meetings made him the most reliable mentor. Holly Faust, manager of the spirit and logo committee, aptly described Darren Cole, "He has a good heart."

Even on the stressful, last day of robot construction, Cole maintained his cheerful spirit. He suggested putting project manager Brian Reily in the crate with the robot to continue his cobbling duties on the conveyor belt,” said teacher Susan Perryman. "It was hilarious."