Edina Robotics found out what it’s like to become part of our city’s history when we stopped by the Edina Historical Society in late June. Team members met with Marci Matson, executive director of the organization, who told us she was interested in archiving and recording the historical events that Edina groups and teams participated in. In our case, it was the 2013 Minnesota State High School League State Robotics Championship. We were startled to find out that she found us through one of the most current online media – Twitter! “Every morning I type ‘Edina’ into the Twitter search engine and see what comes up,” she said. What brought us to her attention was a “tweet” about team members: Members of our team were honored to be featured in photos on the front cover of the 2013 MSHSL program.
Along with the MSHSL programs requested, we decided to bring an assortment of other team-related items. What impressed Ms. Matson was hearing more about how our team really operates like a small business. She learned that our team has both a “non-robot” business (marketing, advertising, presentations) side and a “robot” production (robot build, pit build, programming, design, engineering) side. “I am interested because (this team) has a holistic approach, something other teams don’t often have,” she said.
Ms. Matson spent quite a bit of time looking over each of the items that we brought with us, including medals, a team t-shirt, MSHSL programs, and pins. Each item was carefully examined, and she asked a lot of questions about how each of these items was used by the team. This will be used to form a catalog of Edina Robotics team history. “People come to the historical society to research all kinds of subjects. Many times, people are looking for team rosters. Many schools do not have room to store items like this.”
Her questions got us thinking about how our own team t-shirts and our “Roborag” has changed over time. She says many times organizations like ours want to have a look at these items to help them understand how the next version might look, that change over time in the donated items can show evolution and growth.
Although this first group of items are now properly cataloged and stowed at the Historical Society’s headquarters, they remain accessible to the team for reunions and other purposes. We were encouraged to bring additional items to further round out “our” collection. At the same time, donating items to the historical society offers another possible storage solution, as it is easy to run out of space at school and at the homes of our mentors. And as Ms. Matson points out, “when you get to your 10 year anniversary, you may want these items to display,” she said. However did she know it’s only a year away?
1816 donated the following items to the Society:
- 2012 Regional Chairman’s Medal
- 2013 Regional Engineering Inspiration Medal
- 2013 Robot Trading Card (featuring Zed)
- Be FIRST Button
- Be FIRST Sticker
- 2013 Team T-Shirt (featuring all of our 2013 sponsors)
- 2012 MSHSL Program (the first year the state championship was held)
- 2013 MSHSL Program (with team members on the cover)
- 2013 MSHSL Bag Tag (participation souvenir)
- 2 – Ultimate Ascent pins
- 1816 “Winking Eye” key-tag with Stratasys 3D-Printed mini-auger attached