FIRST is an organization that hopes to foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.” That’s where the Community Partnerships department of Team 812 comes in! The Community Partnerships department strives to get the word of FIRST out to other students and parents. We want everyone in our neighborhoods, our cities, our states, our countries, and our world to experience FIRST.

In our efforts to share our knowledge of science, technology, math, and life skills, we help our members improve their public speaking capabilities; we teach them how to contact professionals, and train students to become a leader in the branch of their liking! Our overall goal is to open doors that lead to scientific and technical studies to all students. The Midnight Mechanics, being from communities where opportunities, such as scholarships, tutoring, and “nerdy” programs, could not be found or were considered unimportant, try to bring opportunities that we are now given being at The Preuss School UCSD and on a FIRST robotics team to our communities.

THIS YEAR’S GOAL We plan to continue all our programs and reach out to the community through our Building Understanding and Determination in Developing Youth [BUDDY] program and our Students Together for Education and Promotion of Science [STEPS] program, as well as all the other components of our Community Partnerships department. To add on, the Midnight Mechanics focused in on helping other teams sustain themselves, establishing the MIDNIGHT TOUR.

Some FIRST teams are starting and stopping, then restarting themselves. The fact is that if a team starts one year and takes a 2-3 year break and then restarts again, it leaves opportunities for those students who missed out because their school’s team was not ongoing. That is where the term “self-sustaining” came into play. Beginning with the new teams, our goal is to teach them from the start on how to be self-sustaining. The Midnight Mechanics have been ongoing since the start! We use these skills to help other teams to improve. Eventually, we hope for them to be able to find their own resources if things do not turn out their way, and find the answers to the questions that no one would answer for them. Hopefully, other teams who have mastered this skill as well are able to help us and be an asset in our MIDNIGHT TOUR!

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