Mackenna is a sophomore in high school and a second-year in FIRST. Each week she spends at least 16 hours in the engineering room, two hours at outreach, and 15 hours at work. Though she has a busy schedule, she manages to lead a team undaunted. Mackenna’s main focus, since the beginning has been to get involved and improve the ideas of FIRST throughout her community.
Mackenna began her journey with FIRST in the Intro to Eng Design classroom. It was here, where Mackenna’s considerable potential stood out to her teacher and soon to be coach, Mr. Franzenburg. Mackenna was reluctant to join at first because she thought it was just about building robots. It took an entire semester to convince Mackenna to come to a meeting. She did, and halfway …show more content…
There, she would work to improve the outreach and help build a brand for the team. She was nominated by the team to become Outreach Lead, meaning she plans and manages outreach events. Along with this role, she has also adapted to a higher leadership position to help the Project Managers keep the team organized and help introduce the first-years to the program. She has also used this position to reach out to more people to make an impact in her community. This year the Mortal Combots mentor FTC team 12753, FRC team, and FLL teams. Along with mentoring teams, the Mortal Combots go to a local aged care center regularly, spending time with the elderly, making them feel more involved. With these (adj) events, Mackenna has helped improve the outreach hours by a whopping 185% from last year. This year (2017/2018), the Mortal Combots have also impacted over 450 people in the Quad City community with their outreach events. Mackenna has helped the team build a brand for themselves by working throughout the season creating a theme for the Mortal Combots--reflecting their origin of the game “Mortal Kombat.” She has done this by creating a unique uniform to represent and unify the team. Another way she brands the team is by continuously using social media, such as Twitter, to reach out to teams and share the progress of the team with spectators. This
Mackenna began her journey with FIRST in the Intro to Eng Design classroom. It was here, where Mackenna’s considerable potential stood out to her teacher and soon to be coach, Mr. Franzenburg. Mackenna was reluctant to join at first because she thought it was just about building robots. It took an entire semester to convince Mackenna to come to a meeting. She did, and halfway …show more content…
There, she would work to improve the outreach and help build a brand for the team. She was nominated by the team to become Outreach Lead, meaning she plans and manages outreach events. Along with this role, she has also adapted to a higher leadership position to help the Project Managers keep the team organized and help introduce the first-years to the program. She has also used this position to reach out to more people to make an impact in her community. This year the Mortal Combots mentor FTC team 12753, FRC team, and FLL teams. Along with mentoring teams, the Mortal Combots go to a local aged care center regularly, spending time with the elderly, making them feel more involved. With these (adj) events, Mackenna has helped improve the outreach hours by a whopping 185% from last year. This year (2017/2018), the Mortal Combots have also impacted over 450 people in the Quad City community with their outreach events. Mackenna has helped the team build a brand for themselves by working throughout the season creating a theme for the Mortal Combots--reflecting their origin of the game “Mortal Kombat.” She has done this by creating a unique uniform to represent and unify the team. Another way she brands the team is by continuously using social media, such as Twitter, to reach out to teams and share the progress of the team with spectators. This