Dragon Robotics

District Alliance

"Sustainability FIRST, then growth..." The Phoenix Union High School District is the largest district in Arizona consisting of sixteen schools. Out of the sixteen, currently only five schools (Bioscience, Carl Hayden, Metro Tech, North, Fairfax) participate in FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). In 2013 Dragon Robotics made it their

primary goal to establish a District Alliance composed of all

the Phoenix Union High School District teams to create and sustain participation in FRC for each school. The main goal

is to collaborate & share, so that all teams can be

sustainable, including sharing of team resources,

like mentors, parts, tools, and knowledge. Team 2375 has

begun to include teams from Chavez, North, Metro Tech, and

Hall-of-Fame team Falcon Robotics, team 842. The partnership

established has resulted in effective networking throughout

the teams in the District Alliance. The partnership that has

evolved over the years includes a variety of things such as

attending each other’s events like Falcon Robotics’ Sci-Tech

Festival. Dragon Robotics members volunteered at their event,

and Falcon Robotics members also attended and volunteered

at the Sci-Tech Festival that was hosted at Bioscience.

Aside from the initial goal of creating a District Alliance, the ultimate goal is to have an FRC team within every school in the Phoenix Union District. To set a foundation for this goal, in 2013 the officers of Dragon Robotics spoke at Metro Tech to get the school interested in starting up a robotics team and spread the message of FIRST, hence how Metro Tech now came to be fully involved in FIRST. In 2013 the Dragons helped create Metro Tech’s FTC team by having workshops, sharing materials, mentoring on engine-

-ering and design as well as programming, and help on how to be a

role model team. Dragon Robotics immediately helped them start

up an FRC team. To further spread teamwork, The Dragons and The

Knight Tech’s worked on creating a practice field for the Duel in the

Desert scrimmage that resulted in benefiting all teams who attended.

The District Alliance often includes inner team bonding—which includes traveling to tournaments together, hosting and having potlucks, fun picnics at the park, etc. The benefit of this alliance is that all existing teams now have a greater, more efficient network and support structure to create a sustainable program in the Phoenix Union High School District, which is what The Dragons are striving towards."