Meeting Notes, August 27

Visiting Rotarians:  Special welcome to Dr. Lonnie Howard, President of Clover Park Technical College and Lakewood Rotarian

Special guests:  Cousins Gavin James Carr and Hazel Billingsley

Others:   Great to see honorary member Grace Clark who has been missed!

Sunshine report:  Keep Kara Faubion in your thoughts and prayers as she recovers from an errant fork in the eye accidently inflicted by her daughter.  She has some blurred vision, but she did relate via email that she is "looking forward to seeing everyone soon."

Upcoming events and/or commitments for our club: 

• Alan Billingsley is collecting school supplies for Southgate until Friday of this week.  Bring to Carr's Restaurant, or to the school on Friday morning, when you participate in...
• ...The Tunnel of Hope, Southgate August 29.  Arrive no-later-than 8:00 AM, and plan to park on street in the nearby neighborhood.  Come welcome the kids back to school.
• Theater Benefit committee has reached about 2/3 of the way to its sponsor goal.  Big thanks to Adriatic Grill (wine), Korsmo Construction, Lakewood Hardware and St Clare Hospital. Rotarians are encouraged to do business with these generous sponsors.  Tickets are available at $50 each from committee members.   Date is September 28 at 6:15.
• Next week, please bring a bottle of wine to club as a donation for the theater event.

Other news:  Karl Roth was the presenter of President Sheri's game, 2 Truths And A Lie, and lest you think otherwise, he was NOT a child accordion player!  Note: Choi Halladay was scheduled to do be the truth or liar for this meeting, and was a no-show (finable offense).

If you have not paid your dues, please do it NOW.

Memorable fines and stories: 

• Grace Clark had an undefined birthday some undetermined time ago.  She was assessed a fine, with the amount undisclosed.
• Karl Roth recently celebrated a birthday over the 50-year benchmark, and also took a cruise to Alaska.  $100
• Bryan Christensen participated in a tennis tournament in Portland, a 3-day event; however, his club team lost the first round and went home early.  $25 to Polio Plus, because Bryan is grateful that he has the physical abilities to be able to play tennis.  
• Lonnie Howard got to feel like a full participant by contributing his $2 fine as a visiting Rotarian.  And after seeing the amounts of the fines which preceded his, then finding out his amount was only $2, his face brightened noticeably.  You see, our club is all about making people feel good.  

Today’s speakers:  Bellarmine students Madison Lindell, James Taylor, Shiraz Shahukar, and Michael Hodson arrived with mentor Joy Taylor to talk about the school's Team 360 robotics club, which competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition.  

FIRST is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, founded by Dean Kamen who invented the Segway 2-wheeled scooter and a bunch of other devices.  FIRST is actually 4 different levels of scientific inquiry:

• Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL), ages 6-9.  Design and build a challenge-related model using LEGO components.  Create a Show-Me poster and practice presentation skills.
• FIRST LEGO League (FLL), ages 9-16.  Teams design their own solution to a current scientific question or problem and build autonomous LEGO robots that perform a series of missions.
• FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), grades 7-12.  Teams of up to 10 students are responsible for designing, building, and programming their robots to compete on a 12 X 12’ field in an Alliance format against other teams.
• FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).  Dubbed “a varsity Sport for the Mind.”  Work alongside professional engineers.  Build and compete with a robot of their own design.  Learn and use sophisticated hardware and software.  Develop design, project management, programming, teamwork, and strategic thinking skills.  Earn a place in the Championship.  Qualify for over $16 million in college scholarships.

The students stressed that they also learn about professionalism in competition and dealing with others, plus how to communicate about what they are doing.  Part of what they have to do is fundraising, since each robot has ~$4000 in components and hardware, plus there are travel and entry fees.  So there is project management, financial management, and team coordination in addition to the geeky science stuff. 

Last year’s robot (above) was designed for a competition involving picking up an exercise ball, passing it with another robot, and shooting it into a goal, while dodging opponents trying to do the same thing as well as prevent this team from succeeding.  Offense and defense.  Varying amounts of points are awarded for different activities, which shapes the design.  Next year will be an entirely new competition with different tasks, and so the current robot will eventually be dismantled so that the components can be reused.  

Raffle:  $689 was not won by ticket holder Bill Harrison.  Bigger pot next week.

And for those of you missing PP Bob Lawrence's unique style, Aug. 28 was the date in 1963 when Martin Luther King addressed the March On Washington, now known as the "I have a dream" speech.  

And for those missing PP Randy Black's own unique style, here is a little something to make you smile:

Two stock brokers are in a bank, when, suddenly, armed robbers burst in, waving guns and yelling for everyone to freeze.  While several of the robbers take the money from the tellers, others line up the customers against a wall, including the two stock brokers, and proceed to take their wallets, watches, and other valuables.  While this is going on, one of the stock brokers jams something into the other stock broker's hand.  

Without looking down, the second stock broker whispers: "What is this?"

The first stock broker: "It's the $100 I owe you!"