OUR TEAM Team 342 strives to inspire and empower our community, school, FIRST and beyond. With our dedication, we motivate those around us, promoting a culture of growth and acceptance for all. Our impact is undeniable as we witness the effects of our efforts wherever we go.

 

We are a student-led team that is advised by mentors. Our team consists of 6 student leaders who collaborate to run 342 smoothly and successfully. Our student Team Captain oversees the whole team and our 5 subteam captains run their respective subteams. Our subteams include: Mechanical, Electrical, Programming, Marketing, Design, Safety, Drive Team, Scouting, and our newest subteam Design. These subteams align with many different interests and allow unique growth for each member by developing both hard and soft skills through hard work, collaboration, project management and leadership.

 

We value positively impacting our team and having an environment for us to apply what we learn from our experiences now and in the future. Our team has a graduation rate of 100%; 90% go on to college and 82% plan to or are working in STEM careers.

 

OUR COMMUNITY IMPACT The outreach 342 provides in our community is extensive, unique and diverse. We use our platform to unite and support our community and spread the word about our team, FIRST and STEAM.

 

For the last 3 years our team has attended the Coastal Carolina Fair alongside FRC Team 3490 to present our robots, which allowed us to grow a stronger relationship, display collaboration and show the uniqueness of FIRST. We also attended the Chamber of Commerce, meeting with local businesses and giving a presentation, allowing us to spread awareness about our role in our community and gave us the opportunity to network with potential new sponsors and mentors. This year 342 attended the Defense Contractor Summit with FRC Teams 3489, 3490 and 3976 where we presented and mingled with over 50 defence contractors, securing several sponsors. Additionally, we attended Bosch Family Day, where we set up an interactive display for families to interact with, showcasing FIRST and our partnership with Bosch.

 

We attend several elementary school Trunk-or-Treats and STEAM nights where we have an interactive robot display allowing students and parents to complete tasks, fostering curiosity about FIRST and STEAM. Our team also volunteers with a Thanksgiving Meal Delivery. This program helps spread holiday cheer by providing food to families in need.

 

IMPACT IN OUR SCHOOL 342 actively engages within our school, spreading awareness about FIRST and STEAM to students, parents and faculty. By participating in events we inspire classmates, which strengthens our visibility and gets everyone fired up to be involved in our sport.

 

Our team annually attends 3 school events to recruit members and promote FIRST: Freshman Orientation, Rising Freshman Night and Patriot Rush. At each event we present our team and robot for rising freshmen and classmates. Last year, 342 had an opportunity to showcase FIRST in a new and unique way by participating in the school Winter Rally, a celebration run by clubs at our school. We demoed a robot and educated about the different types of skills we can strengthen with STEAM. This further boosted visibility and inspired fellow students to join us in FIRST!

 

We have created partnerships with different organizations in our school that share similar goals and values. A member of our team took the initiative to start the National Honors Society (NHS) STEM club last year, which encourages the pursuit of knowledge and ingenuity. NSTEM allows STEM to reach more students and create a lasting impact on participants. Our team collaborates with the NHS and NSTEM, where we run the FLL Explore program together. We also collaborated with them on our annual Beach Cleanup.

 

THE MAGNETO PROJECT This is 342’s EDI initiative. We are dedicated to opening up the realm of FIRST and STEAM to everyone! With our success in creating a safe and open environment for everyone to express themselve, we’ve also seen an increase in participation of females, LGBTQIA+, minorities and special needs individuals.

 

Creating an inclusive environment is a vital part of our team culture and this expands across various socioeconomic factors, as the district serves 62% low-income students. This percentage of low income students has inspired us to increase accessibility to STEAM for all students because we believe everyone deserves equal access to STEAM programs! For example, our team addresses members’ financial concerns by providing fee reductions or scholarships.

 

Our first official project under the Magneto Project is our Pride Burnie Buttons. These buttons were designed as a way to show that our team stands with EDI. We were also asked to create and assemble pronoun buttons for the PCH Charleston District event. We made He/Him, She/Her and They/Them buttons to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to display their pronouns.
 

Our newest project with this initiative is our work with our school’s Special Education Department. We started working with the department this past September with their cookie sales. These cookie sales help teach career readiness skills to the students who are able to participate. The 2 FLL Explore teams that we created with our school’s SPED classroom allowed our team to include students that otherwise would not be able to participate due to their disabilities. We also invited them to view our workshop and drive our 2024 robot.

 

From our 2024 goal to reality, following the success of our FLL Explore SPED program, we have set a new goal to increase special education awareness in our community. STEAM Town, a sub camp of STEAM City, will be a traveling STEAM camp to special education classrooms across the tri-county.

 

MAGGIE IN STEAM Maggie in STEAM (MIS) is another EDI initiative designed to increase female participation in FIRST and STEAM. Due to our MIS initiative, our team has seen a large increase in female participation on our team, in our FLL programs and in our overall outreach attendance. We promote MIS with our yearly involvement in events that empower women to explore STEAM.

 

342 has been invited to assist Girl Powered at East Edisto Middle School 3 years in a row! This initiative inspires girls, 1st-8th grade, to create, test and explore STEAM with unique activities. This event sparks passion to further pursue STEAM in academics. Our team also participated at Girls in Aviation Day, demoing our 2022 robot and guided STEAM activities, such as making kites and rockets. Our efforts successfully encouraged and empowered girls to pursue their interests in STEAM, even when facing a male-dominated workforce. Additionally, we are able to continue to support the Me FIRST movement by stocking the women's restrooms at competitions with menstrual products that have been collected by our team.

 

BINARY BURNIE PROGRAM The Binary Burnie Program is our computer science education initiative, facilitated by our partnership with the SCDOE. With this program 342 hopes to promote furthering computer science education in all academic outlets across South Carolina and beyond. Some of the ways we are actively achieving this is with our STEAM City camp and our involvement with the Computer Science Professional Development Week.

 

The SCDOE provides Ozobots and Spheros for our FREE annual STEAM City summer camp. STEAM City is offered to rising 3rd-5th grade students. We provide 6 different city themed activities to showcase real-world examples where STEAM can be unutilized in our community.

 

At the Computer Science Professional Development Week we were able to introduce teachers of every grade level to FIRST Robotics and VEX Robotics for the first time. This inspired many to explore possibly starting their own FIRST Robotics teams. They were able to learn how to incorporate computer science into the classroom which further exposes students to STEM.

 

BURNING MOMENTUM We created Burning Momentum to help our team further participation in all levels of FIRST Robotics. This initiative strengthens our team’s FIRST pipeline with the Baby Burnie Project, The Smoldering Embers and Magnet Crew.

 

Our Baby Burnie Project focuses on creating and retaining FLL Explore and Challenge teams across many DD2 schools. In the past 3 years 342 has created 13 FLL Explore teams and mentored an FLL Challenge team. 2 of our FLL Explore teams in our school's SPED classroom. In addition to creating and mentoring FLL, our team also volunteers at many FLL competitions and events, including co-hosting the largest FLL qualifier event in the state.

Smoldering Embers is our focus on furthering our team’s involvement in the FTC program. Last year, we hosted an FTC Qualifier at our school. Our team helped set up the night prior and volunteered to help run the event the next day. By supporting FTC, 342 felt inspired by encouraging the application and pursuit of STEAM as FTC members grow within the program. Our team is actively doing research into starting our own FTC team at our school.

 

Magnet Crew is our designated FRC team members on stand by in the Pit’s at competitions. Their job is to provide programming, electrical and mechanical assistance to any team in need. We also host a Shakedown and Scrimmage event. With this, our shop remains open to teams for coaching, mentoring and using our equipment. A few of the teams who we have regularly in our shop are FRC Teams 8137 and 10231. 342 takes every opportunity we can to practice Gracious Professionalism and demonstrate these values to others in our community.

 

HOW WE EMBODY FIRST 342’s efforts are undeniably impactful within our school, community, FIRST and beyond. The scale of our endeavors has visibly grown from our initiatives and involvement. We remain committed to motivating curiosity and leaving a lasting impression on all.