outreach is a crucial part of the paladins identity. Scroll Down to find out the many ways the paladins impact their community!

Following participation in the National Advocacy Conference in June, the paladins went to the Michigan Advocacy Conference as well. Working again with SASA, we went to Lansing to meet with Representative Neil Friske and Senator John Damoose to talk about increasing funding allocated by section 99H to help promote STEM extracurriculars in schools.

In the Summer of 2023, the Paladins attended their first SASA National Advocacy Conference. SASA is an organization devoted to getting robotics students involved in government and promoting STEM in Education. Teams from all over the country came to Washington D.C. to meet with the offices of their elected officials to talk about STEM. While there, the Paladins learned the basics of lobbying from real lobbyists and by the end, got to become lobbyists ourselves. We got to talk to our Representative from MI-1, Jack Bergman, as well as the offices of our Senators, Gary Peters, and Debbie Stabenow, about how important STEM education is to us and our peers. We worked especially closely with other Michigan teams, including 245 the Adambots, 302 The Dragons, 1718 The Fighting Pi, and 2834 the Bionic Blackhawks, to create our presentations for our senators, whom we all shared. We were extremely excited to be a part of such an organization and extremely proud to be the first Northern Michigan team to join such a wonderful group.

The Paladins go to various events throughout Northern Michigan such as the Venetian Festival in Charlevoix. In 2023, we were able to reserve a spot in the street to set up a field and compete in mock matches with Harbor Springs Baywatch.

In 2023, for 6 weeks the two Honors Physics Classes held a mock FTC competition based on the 2019 game SKYSTONE. 45 high schoolers (a vast majority of which had never done robotics before) separated into 5 teams (Big Bottie Barbies, Boti Builders, Ice Climbers, Robo-Speeds, and The Dark Lords Of The Servo) and went through a whole FTC season including a kickoff, T-shirt making, and social media management, and concluding with a competition between robots. Since most people were new to FIRST going into this, they had to learn and develop skills in an extremely short period of time. In the final week our own middle School team (G3 - Geeks, Gears, & Gadgets) joined them to compete. In the end, the #2 seeded alliance, the Boti Builders and G3, came out on top, with the Ice Climbers and Robo-speeds coming in second and the Big Bottie Barbies and Dark Lords of the Servo coming in third.

Every year the Paladins host a Quick Build for all Northern Michigan teams where they come to Petoskey High School for the day and learn the basics of robotics. At the end of the day, everyone leaves with a fully built and programmed Kit Of Parts Chassis.

The Paladins work with people in our community to build our skills, such as Beth Piehl, a communications expert from Char-Em ISD who talked with our NEMO team about branding.

In December 2022, the Paladins made cookies for various groups throughout Petoskey including Brother Dan’s and Independence Village. The holidays can be a struggle for some to get through, so we wanted to spread some cheer and help our community.

In summer 2022, The Paladins Visited Bay View Association Boys and Girls Club to teach over 150 campers (and leaders too) about robots. The camp is host to kids age 7-14 who come to Bay View in the summer from all over the world! We had the privilege to work with around 150 campers to teach problem solving skills through spaghetti towers and egg drops, learn about electricity using snap circuits, and use the robot to shoot targets. Along with teaching at the summer camp, we stopped by their weekly hot dog roast held at Swift Field which over 200 people attended. There we got to meet some members of the community as well as give the kids some more time with the robot.

The Paladins are a community-focused team and love to work with our small town as much as possible. We participate in many outreach events to strengthen the bond between us and our community, such as marching in the Fourth of July parade; providing robot demonstrations at local businesses, elementary schools, and festivals; and joining in every year for Clean the Bear, where we clean trash out of our beloved Bear River.

In 2017, the Paladins build cars for 3 kids who with impaired motor functions who had previously been unable to control where they went on their own. We took electric ride-on play cars and modified them to help these kids move for the first time without assistance.

In summer 2023, the paladins returned for their second year at the Bay View Boys and Girls Club. Similar to the first year, students learned about how the robot worked and were given design challenges to complete. With numbers staying relatively the same, we were able to teach around 150 kids aged 7-14 throughout our weeklong robotics Camp.

In Spring 2023, for spring cleaning, the Paladins partnered with the PHS Sustainability club to collect E-waste off the streets to make sure it didn’t end up in landfills. E-waste can be recycled but must be taken to the center and casts a fee instead of left for curbside pickup, which discourages many from disposing of it properly. In order to combat this, we worked with the City of Petoskey to collect curbside E-waste during spring cleaning and dispose of it for an extremely reduced cost.

In 2023, all the fourth graders in Petoskey had a STEM day at Central Elementary School. The Paladins and our middle school team, G3 Geeks, Gears, & Gadgets brought robots to demo for the students. We also had Paladins help run underwater ROVs at another station with the middle school ROV club.

In 2023, the Paladins took a field trip with the PHS Sustainability Club and the Coding Class to Emmet County Recycling. In our tour, one of the big ideas discussed was the use of robots in recycling. We even got to see some of the new robots they got that sorted all the recycle.

In 2023, the Petoskey Montessori House took a field trip to the Paladins’ shop to learn about robotics. They learned about how our robot works as well as the design principles we employ to work together as a team.

The Paladins often have a stand at the Petoskey open houses. In 2022, they sold earrings to help fundraise with the high school DECA program.

The Paladins often go to farmers’ markets to show off the bot to people downtown.

The Paladins visit schools (such as Central Elementary, shown above) to promote STEM from an early age and engage the community in what we do.

In 2019, the Paladins raised $2,300 for the St. Baldricks Foundation, which provides funding for the research and advocacy of childhood cancer. The participating members took pledges in the weeks leading up to January when they shaved their heads in solidarity with children who suffer from cancer. This cause was very close to our hearts because of our fellow Paladin Evelyn Schwartz, who was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue cancer, in 2017 and sadly passed away on June 24th, 2021.