Photon is the training team for Spectrum 3847. Photon is run as a subset of Spectrum.
Photon exists to allow new team members to have more hands-on experience with building a robot and competing at competition including drive team roles.
During events, Photon rotates its drive team to allow more team members to gain experience.
During Playoffs, a single-drive team is selected to compete in all playoff matches.
3847 and 8515 are sibling teams.
All Photon team members are members of Spectrum 3847. All Spectrum team members are Photon team members
Photon only competes in 2 district events each year. Photon does not compete at the District or FIRST Championship.
Photon students may attend all Spectrum events including District and FIRST Championship
Photon's mascot is a plush purple dinosaur named Photon.
Photon is providing a model for other teams to serve their communities better. Expanding our school's engineering and robotics program to include an FRC team just for first-year students has broadened our impact. It has allowed us to prepare our students better to help other new teams who are building similar robots based on the Everybot design and work with them to have more successful seasons.
Spectrum evolved out of two determined teams and copious amounts of determination. We were originally the rival engineering teams of St. Agnes Academy, an all-girls school, and Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, an all-boys school. The St. Agnes Engineering Team began in 1993, participating in various competitions, while the Strake Jesuit Engineering Team began in 2008. After competing against each other for three years in the BEST competition, we were interested in undertaking a new challenge that would test our ability to the extreme.
The students met to discuss the future of such a program individually and began discussing the possibility of creating a joint FIRST Robotics Competition Team, which we knew would be a huge undertaking. However, we also knew that joining forces would provide an opportunity to create a team stronger than St. Agnes or Strake Jesuit could create separately. With our shared passion for robotics, we resolved our differences and began to coordinate our actions together on our first team challenge: garnering the support of sponsors and our school administrators. The joining of the two teams is a major part of Spectrum's history and defines us as a team that is willing and able to overcome any obstacle by using the many talents that each member brings.
Spectrum’s mission is to create and cultivate opportunities in which students are able to grow mentally and realize their true potential. Our students develop life skills through the promotion of premier qualities, such as amity, volunteerism, dedication, and ebullience. As an engineering team, we believe that every team member has a special place in the process and creation of our robots. We endorse team unity and bonding through integrity, confidence, and chivalry. Our team deepens the bonds between students by allowing them to interact in a safe and nurturing environment that promotes an exploration of ingenuity. We hope to facilitate a love of individuality through the appreciation of the students' varying abilities and qualities.
Founded in 1905, St. Agnes Academy is an all-girls school Catholic college preparatory school dedicated to producing young women with intellectual curiosity, who work for social justice and who act with integrity and compassion in the Dominican tradition. The St. Agnes engineering was founded in 1996, competing in the following competitions: 1996—National Engineering Design Challenge, 1997—Texas Experimental Aeronautics Solution (TExAS), 1998-2000—Texas Engineering Challenge, and 2001-2011 - Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology (BEST).
Address: 9000 Bellaire Blvd, Houston, TX, 77036
Strake Jesuit College Preparatory was founded in 1960 as Jesuit Catholic preparatory school. The Strake Jesuit Engineering team was founded in the fall of the 2007. The team has competed in: 2008-2011—Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology (BEST), 2009-The Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS), and 2010-2011-VEX Robotics.