Personal Narrative: My Robotic Team

Having the ability to lead others is essential in today’s world. For approximately the past two years, I have been the team captain of my high school’s robotics team, the Combustible Lemons. The team has competed in a number of regional, state, and international under my leadership. However, our robotics team wishes to be well rounded, so we do more than just build robots; therefore, we also commit ourselves to service for our community locally and abroad. Although being a leader can sometimes be difficult, I find great pleasure in being one because it is challenging, it is useful, and it is influential.
Nearing the end of our robotics competition season in February 2014, when I was still a sophomore, I became a co-captain of the team.
I believe that when I became the captain of my robotics team, I have gained countless important life skills. For example, I believe that I have gained a great understanding of resilience, dedication, responsibility, and teamwork. More specifically, to have resilience means to be able to quickly recover from difficulties and failures, to have dedication it means to be committed to a task or purpose, to have responsibility means to be accountable for your actions, and to have teamwork means to combine the efforts of a group of people. Furthermore, being a leader has also assisted me in my socializing and networking skills. When I was younger, I was a shy person. However, because I have to present various presentations and meet many new people as the team leader, I have broken out of my shell and I know greatly enjoy acquainting myself with new people. Frankly, I have had many challenges and failures that I have had to overcome throughout my years, but with these life skills, I believe that I have been able to accomplish many of the goals I reach
Although being a leader of my school’s robotics team has not changed my career goals, it has greatly influenced my goals in the terms of community service. Since joining the team, I have volunteered for far more volunteering opportunities than I would have if I were to do them alone. For example, as team we have packaged thousands of nutritional meals for families in Central and South America. Furthermore, we have volunteered at other STEM related events in our immediate community. One of our larger service programs is the NXT Repurpose Project, which repurposes outdated robot brains, so that they are along with Lego robotics kits to less fortunate students across the world. So far, we have donated robotics kits to students in Ghana, Kenya, and Serbia. In June this summer, we plan to travel to Kenya for approximately two weeks. While we are there, we will personally mentor and teach students how to build and program robots one-on-one, so that they will be exposed to STEM concepts with fun! Finally, being a leader for my robotics team has pushed me to commit myself to serve my community locally and globally more and more. Therefore, my goals are to volunteer for Living Lands and Waters, the American Red Cross, the AmeriCorps, Engineers Without Borders,