Students and instructors from Team 1742 have dedicated themselves to modeling Gracious Professionalism, and communicating the value of the FIRST Robotics experience across the state of Oklahoma. As a result of that commitment, Team 1742 was, and is, an important factor in the explosive growth of FIRST Robotics in Oklahoma.

We have made presentations to state legislators, the Noble Foundation, the Oklahoma State School Board Association, the Oklahoma Career Tech Convention in Tulsa, the Oklahoma Pre-Engineering Conference, Career Tech Directors, schools outside our districts to help start a team, local school boards, the chamber of commerce, and the Rotary and Lion’s Clubs.

We have made trips around the state to help other teams, and were fortunate to win the 2008 Johnson and Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award at the OKC Regional. We have been helped by many teams in the past, notably Team 476 and 1561 and we pay it forward.

Team 1742 makes it a point to reach out to those less fortunate than ourselves. Every year the team anonymously adopts at least 2 families in the community and makes their holidays brighter by providing Christmas presents and dinner.

This year, our team achieved its goal of having all it’s members complete 10 hours of safety training. All members of Team Shockwave are certified by OHSA for the next two years.

Two alliances,red and blue, composed of three FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams each, compete in each match. The object of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponent by shooting balls into a goal, climbing on the alliance tower or platform, or by lifting an alliance robot off the playing surface.

The Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award in FIRST Robotics. It exemplifies the fundamental goals of modeling Gracious Professionalism and inspiring young people to pursue a degree related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Shockwave Team 1742 has embraced these core values and in five short years has created a team for others to emulate. With over 80% of our former Shockwave members currently pursuing engineering degrees, we are making a difference in the lives of our team and community. We are the gracious professionals of Shockwave Team 1742.

From the beginning, we have worked hard to build sustained support from our fantastic partners. Moore Norman Technology Center, York/Johnson Controls, The University of Oklahoma College of Engineering, and Boeing have given us tremendous support in providing mentors and learning opportunities. Not only have these companies offered financial assistance, but engineers such as Nick Grady (Boeing), Keith Gray (Boeing), Hal Jeffrey (York), Chad Davis (OU), and Jordon Kuehn (OU) have provided technical assistance and inspiration. Our sponsors' assistance was crucial in our success at the Oklahoma City Regional last year and will continue to be a key pillar in the future success of our team. Shockwave Team 1742 would have never existed without the support of Moore Norman Technology Center and the vision of our dedicated instructors and coaches Art Waldenville and Jason Rausch.

Team 1742's work is not just done in the lab. In fact, our team is an active force in the Moore and Norman communities. We began our community commitment five years ago with our technology center's "Adopt a Family" program. Each year we adopt children of families facing financial difficulties and buy them gifts for the holiday season. Along with supporting those less fortunate, Shockwave Team 1742 is at the forefront in terms of promoting STEM opportunities to students in Moore and Norman. For the past three years we have presented to many of the communities' civic clubs about our FIRST team and the importance of STEM education. Each year, we invite advanced math students in the eighth grade to the Oklahoma City Regional. We provide team T-shirts, bus transportation, and make sure they feel like they are part of Shockwave Team 1742.

The greatest impact on our team and our community has been the creation of two FIRST Lego League teams this year. We are extremely proud of Team 10148 Powersurge and Team 9820 Aftershock. In one week, two elementary teachers were identified by team members and contacted about being a coach. Both gladly accepted and their teams worked closely with our team members as they prepared for the very first Oklahoma FLL Regional. Using our team funds, we paid registration and bought the kits for both teams. We then built the playing fields for both teams. The two coaches, teachers of their elementary school S.E.A.R.C.H. programs, were extremely grateful to us for giving them an opportunity to be a part of something so memorable. When the Shockwave member who helped create team 9820 was asked why he chose his former teacher, he said, "Growing up, S.E.A.R.C.H. was the best class in elementary school. My teacher made learning an exciting experience, and we always got to work with the best technology at school. I knew that if we wanted more elementary students involved in engineering educations, this teacher would make the students' FIRST experience enjoyable, and he would help open many doors for their futures." Indeed, these students had a tremendously positive experience, but they weren't the only ones. Many members of Shockwave Team 1742 had the privilege of mentoring these intelligent young minds. It was a great opportunity for us to view the FIRST experience from a mentor's perspective. Not only have we had an impact on these twenty elementary school students, but we believe we have created many future FIRST mentors.

Shockwave Team 1742 is also recognized at the state and national levels for our commitment to STEM education and FIRST Robotics. Our mentors Art Waldenville and Jason Rausch have played a large part in the explosion of robotics in our state. They have presented to state leaders in education about the importance of FIRST as a learning experience. They also continue to promote the connection between Pre-Engineering Programs in our state and FIRST Robotics. Our team has traversed the state of Oklahoma presenting to The Noble Foundation, Oklahoma State School Board Association, Oklahoma Pre-Engineering Conference, ODCTE Directors Meeting, and Oklahoma state legislators. We believe these efforts played a large role in the surge from eight Oklahoma teams in 2006 to forty-nine teams in 2010. They also played a very important role in helping FIRST Regional Director Harold Holley, Woodie Flowers winner Tonya Scott, and Team 476 in fulfilling their vision of establishing the very first Oklahoma City Regional.

Each year, we help facilitate the Oklahoma State University Robotics Summit and Kickoff events. Mentors Art Waldenville and Jason Rausch, as well as high school team members, have lead sessions in previous years on "The Design Process", "Manipulators", "Electronics", and "Kit Bot Building (transmissions)". This year we presented a session on getting started using Autodesk Inventor's CADD software in the design process. Our mentor Mr. Waldenville also assisted in the "Making Things Move" session with Ken York of Ponca City.

In November of 2009, four students and our instructor presented at the Project Lead the Way National Symposium on High School Engineering Education. We shared information about FIRST, STEM, and Pre-Engineering Programs in Oklahoma. We were excited to hear PLTW CEO John Locke talk about a stronger partnership with FIRST and know our team is a great example of how the two programs can work together. We were able to present to educators, administrators, state and local leaders about the need to make FIRST Robotics a part of their state.

Along with supporting our local community outside of robotics, we take great pride in supporting other teams in our FIRST community. Each of the past 5 years, we have traveled and presented to our five local high schools to help build new teams (Team 2793) and worked with local home school teams (SirMachinery Team 2829) who have joined the FIRST family. In our second year, we began the tradition of mentoring rookie teams with our support of Team 2045. Since then we have continued to support teams such as Team 2461, Team 2793, and Team 2829 at regional competitions or during build season. During the Dallas regional in 2009, we assisted over 11 teams in passing inspection, updating the new driver station firmware, and completely programming a team's dumper basket on their robot. The Johnson and Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award is an extremely important goal for our team, and we are proud to have won it two years straight through these efforts. This year we are continuing this tradition by mentoring Team 3169, The Saints, from Edmond Oklahoma. Each year our Boeing sponsors host a scrimmage on the weekend before ship date. This year, one of our team members was able to secure the Oklahoma Science Museum for our Boeing Sponsors to host the event. This allowed easier access to the general public as well as more teams being able to attend the event.

Another thing that could be said about our team is that we do the right things for the right reasons. We make a commitment to educate all team members about all aspects of our robot so that at competition, we can help other teams. If you can't find a member of Shockwave Team 1742, try looking in someone else's pit. We do whatever we can to make sure teams pass inspection and that they be a force to be reckoned with on the field. We accomplish this by making sure each of our team members has a working knowledge of how to design a basic program for a robot, and also how to build the standard Kit of Parts bot. With that knowledge, they are sent out into other team's pits with a roll of duct tape and are told to help with anything they can. In 2008, Shockwave Team 1742 member Catherine Gunter helped a team build a robot on Thursday and get it through inspection.

Last year we advanced further than any other year of participation in FIRST, but we still have more in store for us and our community. This season we have contacted our State Senators and local Representatives, inviting them to Moore Norman Technology Center and to the Oklahoma City FIRST Robotics Regional. We have asked them to continue supporting FIRST. We have been contacting our former team members and getting them registered through FIRST. We continue to promote FIRST to non-technical audiences and will drag everyone we can the Oklahoma City Regional. Dean's Homework never stops for us.

Shockwave Team 1742 has supported and promoted its local and FIRST communities both on and off the field. We value what this experience gives us, while remembering to give it back. It doesn't matter where the Shockwave starts; it's how far it travels that's important.

For those who are not a member of the FIRST robotics community, it is difficult to understand how much of a commitment it is to be a FIRST mentor. I am starting to understand after watching ours at work for the last two years. We are fortunate to have one of the best mentors in the state of Oklahoma. His name is Art Waldenville, and he is the definition of a gracious professional. He leads by example and makes sure we understand that the robot isn’t the finished product, we are.

Mr. Waldenville dedicates his time and energy promoting FIRST and what it stands for in our community and across the state. He is always one of the first to answer the call of Regional FIRST Director Harold Holley, and is a huge reason for the tremendous growth of FIRST robotics in Oklahoma over the past 5 years. This year, he supported us as we created and mentored two new FIRST Lego League teams. While volunteering as a judge at the very first Oklahoma FLL championship, he had fun watching both teams excel.

Due to his efforts, Team 1742 has more than tripled in size during his five years as a mentor. He has provided a model for other technology centers and high schools to implement FIRST Robotics. During the build season, he often travels out to other teams helping them in those dark hours when they aren’t sure if they are ever going to get a robot to work. Through him we have learned that no matter how difficult Calculus, Physics, and Engineering are, we all must find time to go out and help others.

We are very proud of our mentor, but we are not the only ones. 2008 Woody Flowers Award winner Tonya Scott of Team 476 says, “Art is the kind of person that we would all like to be; sincere, thoughtful, kind, and intelligent. He always greets me with a big hug and friendly smile and the compassion he feels for his students is equally noticeable. Art also sees the value of building kids with robots, and he is a true, gracious friend and colleague in FIRST. I know without a doubt that if I call on Art for help or for a spare part, which I have done many times in the past, that he will promptly provide whatever is needed. His heart is truly gracious and he gives so much of himself.”

At competition, he continues to help countless teams with whatever they need. I have learned that people’s true character shows when they are under stress. Under the pressures of an FRC competition, Mr. Waldenville is at his best. He never fails to wear a smile and encourage his students to have fun and learn from others.

Former Shockwave member Melinda Merritt says, “Our lab is his home away from home. He does so much research, and gives up so much time for his students, we couldn’t be more grateful.” As part of Dean’s homework last year we have found that over 80 percent of former Shockwave members are still enrolled as engineering majors. I believe the experience he gives us is a large reason why. “These six weeks (build season) is why I do FIRST. Watching all of you work together, to work through problems, that is what motivates me,” explains Mr. Waldenville.

Our team has enjoyed many successes, including being awarded the Gracious Professionalism Award the past two years. There is an obvious reason for this. We are a reflection of our coach.