Search
As Omnicats, we firmly abide by our slogan, “Student Designed. Student Built” because we want to engage in a learning experience independent from professional mentors where we can express our ideas freely, work in a professional environment, and learn from our mistakes. This style has encouraged us to step outside of our comfort zone and work more closely with our teammates. Our team is organized into many different sub teams. Every practice, our team breaks into these groups to discuss what needs to be done, then comes back to organize our tasks on Trello. When we come together, we discuss our goals and plans in the short term and long, allowing our student run group run effectively in a dynamic environment. In addition to the groups, we also have a VEX Robotics. We work on VEX Robotics for the first half of the year before passing the responsibilities of the VEX team onto the middle schoolers. This, along with our mentorship team, allows them to get experience in robotics at a younger age making them much more enthusiastic and prepared for when they eventually join our FRC Team.

Mentorship

Although we pride ourselves on being "Student Designed. Student Built," we realize that no robotics team is complete without mentors. Our team has a variety of mentors that range from FRC Veterans, to engineers, to Windward alumni. Although we have these mentors, we want to keep the focus on the students, and use them as advisors who help us strategize and prototype, while putting the majority of the work and brainstorming in the hands of our students. In addition to this, we encourage our high school students, particularly juniors and seniors, to act as mentors to the middle schoolers on our VEX teams, and to help bring new people, with various unique skills or even no experience at all, onto the team as to create a nurturing and inclusive environment in accordance with our school's values. We believe that encouraging this student mentorship has benefits on both ends by exposing new people to robotics and by giving our seasoned members the ability to develop new leadership skills that will benefit them in future endeavors.

Team Organization

Our team is split into three sub divisions and into further sub teams within those subdivisions. These three divisions are System Engineering, Internal Operations, and Ambassadors. Each division has its own lead, and they are supervised by our team captain. The first of these divisions is System Engineering which deals with the robot, the sub teams of this division are the mechanism teams, the drivetrain team, the code team, the CAD team, the electrical team, and the integration team. Each of these sub teams and the sub teams of  the other divisions has a lead that supervises and manages what the team is doing at any given point. The next division is Internal Operations which deals with things like financials, scheduling, and maintaining a good environment. The sub teams of our internal operations division are the Logistics and Safety team. The final division is our Ambassador division which deals with communicating with other teams and with other groups at our school. The sub teams of our ambassador division are the outreach team and the PR team. These teams work in unison and all often collaborate with each other as students are encouraged to be a part of multiple of them. This team structure enhances efficiency, organization, and allows people to work where they are best suited to work and where they are more interested in working.

VEX Robotics

In addition to our FRC program, we also have a vibrant VEX program at our school. We offer an 8th grade class that deals with VEX robotics and allows students to not only gain an experience in robotics but also learn it in a class that is specifically dedicated to teaching it. In addition to this we used to compete in the VRC High Desert League as team 5871, and, now that the league no longer exists, we are part of the Bakersfield League under the same team number. We have won a variety of awards in VEX robotics and have learned that having it in the FRC off season is an effective way to keep people active in robotics throughout the entire school year. Vex also serves as a good introduction to new freshmen on the team, introducing them to robotics before the FRC season comes into full swing. In recent years we have also found that VEX is a good platform to get middle schoolers interested in and learning about robotics, and that having them on our team, even taking the lead after FRC starts, gives them valuable experience that makes FRC both more enjoyable and easier in it when they get to high school and become members of the FRC team.

In Our School Community

Outside of VEX and FRC, we try to make an effort to be active and contribute to our school community. We offer two middle school classes that allow younger students to get more involved in robotics and see if it peaks their interest. We also have designed robots for our school community in general and even collaborated with Windward's theater department a few years ago to create a robots that starred as a prop in their productions of Aladdin and The Wizard of Oz. Many of our team members are also part of other groups on campus such as the CREATE Studio Stewards, who help in our school's maker space, and theater technology and because of this we often work closely with these groups to bolster each other. Currently, we are planning to design a robot that will work as a prop in one of our school's productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream.