TEAM 3641.COM
The Flying Toasters
A Unified Competitive High School Robotics Team
South Lyon, MI USA
To inspire, and intrique, unite and achieve greatness!
Building Bridges and
STEAM-ing Ahead into
a Better Future
Community Connections
Moving Ahead with Steam! Community Outreach at the Salem-South Lyon Library
FRC Team 3641 & FTC 8487 offered two one hour classes for elementary students at the Salem-South Lyon Library to promote STEAM and FIRST robotics.
Maxey School for Boys
A team mentor made the team aware that the Maxey Boys Maximum Security Juvenile Detention Center was being closed down, and many residents were soon to be released. Our team gave the students a presentation about opportunities in FIRST Robotics, and the abundance of STEAM careers open to them. We even gave them the hands on option to drive our robot. The residents were intrigued and many said to us that they were interested in joining a FIRST team. It was a heartwarming experience for the whole team to see how we could make a difference in their lives.
Families Building Faith
<-- For the fourth year in a row, the team has worked closely with Families Building Faith in our community to build Easter baskets for underprivileged children, teens, and adults. In total, our team has created over 120 Easter baskets for children in Flint, Michigan. The team also hosted a supplies drive in our schools that raised over 300 coloring books, crayons, and more for these baskets.
Pumpkin Fest
The Flying Toasters have continued their tradition of attending the local South Lyon PumpkinPfest. There, we held a booth where people could play a game and learn about FIRST robotics. Also, we had our robot driving the streets, providing an interactive activity for passerbys. In addition to making nearly $700 from our booth, we got to teach all ages of our community about robotics.
Detroit Maker Faire
The Flying Toasters attended the Maker Faire, a traveling expo that allows companies and teams show off their latest technology. The Toasters manned a booth to show off the benefits and opportunities of FIRST robotics. We led a robot parade around the fairgrounds to engage the minds of others and show the efforts of our team. The entire team had a blast showing off our accomplishments and learning about others.
Girl Scout Night
For the girl scout night the team invited our local girl scout troop to our workshop. We did STEAM related activities such as creating our own bouncy balls, and controlling out vex team’s robot. We also showed off our robot to the girls and gave them a tour of our workshop. The girls all had a ton of fun and were all interested in coming for another girl Scout night. When the night was over one of the student’s parents came up to us and told us how grateful he was for getting his daughter interested in robotics and STEAM, and for showing the team the advantages of FIRST.
FIRST in Michigan
Our team is working hand in hand with Gail Alpert, the president of FIRST in Michigan, to create a FIRST Robotics curriculum. Once completed, this lesson plan will be put in place and students across the state will be able to learn more about STEAM. We are writing this plan based on our own STEAM classes and our technology classes based off of our robotics team. We aspire to inspire students of all ages across our state to pursue STEAM and encourage FIRST Robotics.
C.S. Motts Children's Hospital
Two years ago the Toasters held a drive in hopes of collecting art supplies for the children of Mott Children’s hospital. This drive was held at both high schools and we collected boxes upon boxes of crayons, markers and coloring books. This was so successful that we decided to hold it again last year. Again, we collected multiple boxes of art supplies, and also collected some donations of very generous people so we could purchase even more art supplies to give.
War Dog Memorial
Team 3641 worked with a local boy scout on his eagle scout project to resurface grave stones at the Michigan War Dog Memorial. The team worked for six hours to relay hundreds of gravestones. It was so special to see all of the team members working to honor those lost in battle. Now visitors can pay their proper respects to those who lost their lives for our country. -->
Pratt & Miller Presentation
<-- Our sponsor, Pratt & Miller, invited us to showcase our program at our headquarters, and to meet Governor Rick Snyder to discuss the future of STEAM education--and our connections with the governor don’t stop there. Governor Snyder has been a huge supporter of the Toasters over the years, a connection that has enabled us to work towards our goal of increasing awareness of FIRST and STEAM throughout the state.
Active Faith Community Service
<-- The Flying Toasters helps to serve soup and bread at the annual Active Faith Community Services Empty Bowls fundraiser. And, yes, you will hear them talking robotics to the many guests that joined them at the event!
The Flying Toasters Team with Active Faith in a bowling fundraiser to raise funds for the local food pantry and clothes closet, which serves the families in need in our community. The Toasters created a robotics basket for the event raffles and assisted wherever needed to help run and supervise the raffle. Active Faith personnel know they can count on FIRST Robotics Team 3641. -->
South Lyon School Board Presentation
<-- The Toasters are annually invited to give a demonstration to our South Lyon School Board. The Flying Toasters bring part of the field and set it up in the parking lot to give demonstrations of the robot. Then, the Chairman’s team gives our presentation, which showed how far we have come as a team since our first year. The Flying Toasters are thankful for the opportunity to bridge robotics into our school administration.
Community Robotics Open House
The team invited incoming freshman as well as students already in high school to come and visit with them during the actual construction of our robot. Throughout the years, we have had our older robots available to be driven by interested members as well as a mock game made from VEX kits. -->
