TEAM HISTORY
Howdy Bots FRC 6377 started in 2016 when a student expressed interest in joining a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team but discovered that he was ineligible because he was not enrolled in a public high school and there were no local community teams available to him. Howdy Bots was created to fill that gap and to provide homeschooled and non-traditionally schooled students, as well as any other students who are otherwise unable to access a team, the opportunity to participate in FIRST robotics programs. These students compete against large public high school teams who have big workshops and even bigger budgets.
In our inaugural season (2016-2017), we only had 10 students. Not only did we win the Rookie Inspiration Award and were Safety Award finalists, but they also won the prestigious Rookie All-Star Award, which earned them a spot in the World Championship! These awards recognize the strength of the partnership among team members, mentors and the community. It is also a nod to something that is hard to quantify– how we inspire others to want to learn more about science and technology.
The next year was even more successful, as we won the Lone Star Regional, which qualified us for Champs a second year in a row; unheard of for a 2nd year team. We also took home the Imagery Award, which recognized our business sub-teams’ efforts in branding and marketing.
MISSION STATEMENT
The mission of the Howdy Bots is to leverage STEAM and FIRST as a means to provide concrete opportunities for all students so they can explore their interests, pursue their passions, and develop into successful, happy, confident adults.
CORE VALUES
The four Howdy Bots Fence Posts represent the core values of our team. The Fence Posts provide a “North Star” that guides all team decisions and ensures that we are operating with high integrity, and in line with the principles of FIRST.
Texas Friendly: Texas Friendly guides our team culture and dynamic towards others. While still driven to succeed, we strive first for a relaxed and supportive environment that makes everyone feel like they can try new things or contribute their ideas. We value our relationships above winning. We emphasize helping other teams whenever we can and being a good team player within our alliance and with our opponents.
Forging Deep Connections: Working with others and keeping good relationships is something we as a team value as a part of competitions. We believe that the key to succeeding in our mission is by working with others, and the key to advancing society is by offering support to help others achieve their mission along the way. We do this by creating new relationships with rookie teams that are in need of help, keeping up with other teams through friendly conversation on social media, and staying connected with our current friends.
Apprenticeship: With the Howdy Bots, we believe in being a student-driven organization, with a focus on developing “real-world” skills. Our mentors provide training and guidance as needed, but ultimately the students are performing all of the brainstorming, designing, and building of the robot, with the newest students actively participating at all times. As we gain more experience as an organization, our senior students will also play a larger role in helping train and support the junior team members, which in turn will help give them opportunities to develop valuable leadership skills.
Whole Ranch Operation: We value our smaller team that gives members the ability to “wear many hats”, and freely move across our sub-teams, even during the season. Our entire team participates in game strategy and brainstorming robot mechanisms. Members of our mechanical team have worked on our awards, and business team members have helped with CAD and robot fabrication. This gives students a broader range of learning experiences, and helps make us a better team by ensuring that students bring their variety of strengths and perspectives to each activity. The Whole Ranch Operation is also about prioritizing the business and creative aspects of the Howdy Bots, not just the building of the robot. Despite our small team size, our team brainstorms unique fundraising campaigns, produces custom pit decorations and banners, and runs an active social media presence.
Team Goals
Through our Core Values, we identified 3 Goals to strive for every year to keep our team successful in the future.
- Stabilize: Continue to build our program and diversify our student body by maintaining:
- A home-school population percentage above 20%,
- A female and non-binary percentage above 25%, and
- A minority percentage to above 40%
- Sustain: Build and Retain recurring sponsorships and grow our community involvement by participating or hosting at least 3 local events.
- Strengthen: Train all new members using our training program and ensuring at least 20% of our students have held a leadership position within the team or during competition.