Community service
Blue Grass FIRE STATION
Every Sunday, members of the Combustible Lemons visit the Blue Grass Fire Station in order to help the firefighters with whatever they might need. This includes organizing bills, cleaning the station or cleaning the trucks.
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Care packages - 2016
During the chilling Winter months the Combustible Lemons hosted a Care Package Drive. We collected donations of scarves, hats, gloves, toiletries, and other necessities for 21 homeless students at our school. Afterwards we carefully packaged them up and delivered them to these students. The donating was a big success, and we had many leftover donations that we donated to a homeless shelter in our area.
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Blanket Drive - 2016
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The Blanket Drive is the second part of our care package drive. We received a $250 grant from Thrivent Financial to purchase fabric and make tie-blankets for the homeless students in our school. We used this money in order to purchase fabric to make 23 blankets (21 of which went to homeless students in our school). With a $100 from our coaches, we headed to a second-hand store in the area and purchased clothes to donate to the shelter along with the two left over blankets and all of the care package items not used for the students.
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STEAM promotion
Mentoring Fll Jr. and FLl teams |
The Combustible Lemons are lucky enough to be able to be involved in all four levels of FIRST. A key part of this is mentoring FLL Jr. and FLL teams. There are three FLL Jr. teams that we mentor each week, and are able to help FLL teams as needed rather than during each of their meetings. By helping these younger students learn about STEAM Principles and about FIRST, we are able to help further their knowledge of these ideas that can be used in their everyday lives and throughout their learning career.
Steam fest - 2016
Brandon Clark working with young students during STEAM Fest,
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STEAM Fest was held in November 2016 at Western Illinois University's campus. Members of the Combustible Lemons were able to volunteer and host a room about STEAM. There were three activities held by the Lemons throughout the day. The first one was having the children fit 12 ping pong balls into a manilla folder without having them touch, the second
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women in engineering day - 2016
The Combustible Lemons worked with students on the FRC team, Disruptive Innovation, at their school in order to put on a Women in Engineering Day. Female engineers from companies like John Deere and Cobham spoke to around 70 female students from West High School about their day-to-day jobs, giving them an inside look at the engineering world and, specifically, what being a woman in the engineering field is like. Giving these female students examples of successful women in the STEM career exposed them to the opportunties awaiting them after graduation and in their careers.
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Girls from West High School, learning about STEM careers and driving the robot during Women in Engineering Day.
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Starting a first robotics challenge (FRC) team - 2016
While the two FTC teams at West High School collectively impact around 30 students in total, the two coaches and many mentors knew that there were many more students that could be postively impacted by STEAM principles. Though many more students had an interest in STEAM or in robotics itself, only so many students can fit into one engineering room and only so many students have time after school to participate in these meetings frequently, because of other extracurricular activities or sports that would also meet during these times. Having an FRC team that would allow these students to gain the experience that FIRST can give them, while being aware of these timing challenges, the Lemons along with the coaches and other teachers involved decided that turning the FIRST Robotics Challenge into its own class was the best option, and the INSPIRE Program was born. The INSPIRE Program at West is split up into five career pathways, Engineering, Advanced Manufacturing, Health Sciences, Computer Sciences, and Business, which all come together in a Capstone class (after completing all prerequisites) to form an FRC team that functions similarly to a small business. Impacting as many students as possible with FIRST is extremely important to the Combustible Lemons who have been working hard this season to show those new to FIRST how everything operates and helping them get prepared for their first competition season.
Disruptive Innovation's team photo, shown above.
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Combustible Lemons members, Brandon Seamer and Kailey Fellner, during a presentation about the new FRC team.
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