Revision as of 19:37, 12 June 2009

Universities

Many alumni have been accepted to and attended prestigious and internationally-ranked universities including Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, New York University, Boston University, University of Pittsburgh, Penn State's Schreyer Honors College, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Arizona Honors College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Drexel, and The United States Coast Guard Academy.

Majors

In five years, every graduate of Downingtown Area Robotics has gone on to college, and most have majored in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) or business subject. Specific majors and minors include mechanical, aerospace, marine, civil, material, chemical, and biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering technology, naval architecture, engineering science, applied mechanics, computer science, chemistry, environmental biology, actuarial science, mathematics, statistics, economics, and military science.

Scholarships

Graduates have been awarded FIRST Robotics scholarships, which high school juniors and seniors can apply for. They have also received many other scholarships and grants, including several full scholarships to distinguished universities.

STEM/Robotics Participation

Many graduates have held STEM jobs at local businesses and/or participated in STEM research, including robotics-related studies. In addition, some alumni have returned as mentors to Downingtown Area Robotics and others participate on robotics or FIRST teams, including Team 2152 and Penn State's AUVSI IGVC Team.

Alumni

Names in alphabetical order by high school graduation year.

2005

• Bill Best(?)

Minh Tran

is attending Villanova.

• Brandon Zehner(?)

2006

James Coll

is attending Penn State.

Ethan Goldblum

is attending Carnegie Mellon.

Jake Marsh

is attending Penn State.

Steven Owens (Captain 2006)

is attending Penn State (University Park) on a chemistry scholarship and majoring in chemistry. He has participated extensively in STEM research.

• Kathleen(?)

2007

Josh Anders

is attending Embry-Riddle with a 15% scholarship and majoring in aerospace engineering with a minor in mathematics.

Paul Andrejko

is attending Penn State's Schreyer Honors College (University Park) and majoring in actuarial science with minors in statistics and economics.

• Ian Barr(?)
• Ryan Christen(?)

Cassie Jurgens

is attending the University of Pittsburgh and majoring in civil engineering and architecture.

Vicky Lai

is also attending the University of Pittsburgh.

Ben McElroy (Captain 2007)

in part credits his acceptance to the United States Coast Guard Academy to his participation in FIRST Robotics. After discovering Ben participated in FIRST, the admissions officers of USCGA moved him from 100th on the waiting list to first.

• David Pravensky(?)

Jeremy Schieferstein

is attending Lehigh University and majoring in chemical engineering and minoring in materials science and engineering.

• Eddy Scrivens II(?)
• Kevin Short(?)
• Shawn Trainer(?)

Victoria Tran

is attending Villanova.

Don Webb

is attending the University of Pittsburgh.

• Kyle West(?)

2008

• John Carpenter

Dan Coll

is attending Cornell.

Jason Downey

is attending Penn State.

Amber McKown

was FRC's animation team leader for two (three years?). She is attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on a leadership scholarship and majoring in computer science and biomedical engineering. She made the Dean's List in 2009. She has worked at [www.bentley.com Bentley Systems] several times after graduating from high school.

Michael Posner (Co-Captain 2008)

Michael is attending the University of Pennsylvania and majoring in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics.

John Stumpo (Co-Captain 2007)

is and was the FRC team's expert welder. He has returned as a mentor for the summer of 2009. John is attending Penn State - Berks Campus and majoring in mechanical engineering technology.

• Matt Witmer: is attending Cabrini College.

2009

Alex Clark

is a freak of nature. He has arms that extend 90' and in his final games playing Lunacy he was able to make a number of those Did YOU SEE THAT? shots at competition. He also has excellent music tastes, who would have thought that zydeco was the right music for the final crate night? Alex is attending Villanova University with a Commuter's Scholarship and majoring in chemical engineering.

Evan Kroboth

Hans Herman

was the key designer and engineer in Vex Team 1640 robot. He spent time working with the new middle school roboteers to get them to assemble the design correctly. He spent an number of weekends in doing final assembly and programming to get the robot to do exactly what they wanted. His leadership skills in getting new middle school roboteers to do what was needed and focused on the robot was a commendable effort.

Anna Hughes

is a long term roboteer in the Vex organization. She did an outstanding job in her senior year by doing all the "event" planing which consisted of getting parents assigned, planning the food and beverage concession and getting all of the items delivered for the events we held. She is one of the reasons the Eastern Pennsylvania Vex Regional was such a success. Anna is attending Marlboro College.

Siri Maley (Captain 2008 and 2009)

(Stuff to be added here) Siri is attending Penn State's Schreyer Honors College (University Park) with a Scholar's Scholarship and majoring in mechanical engineering with minors in engineering science and military science (AFROTC).

Zak McConnell

(Stuff to be added here) Zak is attending Carnegie Mellon and majoring in physics.

Heather McKown (Co-Captain 2009)

is one of the diminishing group of small fingered orphans (SFO). The small fingered orphans are roboteers that have the ability to stick their hands into poorly designed, awkward spaces and actually make mechanical changes. This saved us hours of disassembly time and was a factor in design "awww just get a SFO" to fix poor design plans.

Heather is also a Class A Machinist, she can fab parts with the best of them. Heather is attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Medalist's Scholarship and majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Heather is also an artist and designed the FRC team t-shirts for DEWBOT III, DEWBOT IV, and DEWBOT V.

Elizabeth Murphy

Has skills in a number of areas. First, she is a Class A Machinist. The phrase "If Murph can't make it you don't want it" had two meanings. Either the part was so poorly defined that you were not going to be happy with the result. Second was the double bend into N space you had designed wasn't going to work in this universe. In most cases, she could produce parts off of drawings. On time, on spec, one pass!

She is also an artist with paint and brush. She painted the DEWBOT V shipping crate, which won rave comments from other teams. The complicated "wireframe screwdriver" with sparks was hand drawn based on Heather McKown's design. The famous "Hope is not an Engineering Strategy" was replicated on the side of the crate. "Murph" is attending Shippensburg University with the Clarence Schock Scholarship and majoring in environmental biology.

James Yu

due to his schedule was not there as much as the mentor's would have liked. When he was in the shop, work happened. A combination of mechanical skills and a high energy personality got James and other roboteers fired up to complete tasks. James is attending Drexel University with a full scholarship and is an undecided sciences major.