Outreach

The Holy Cows Spirit Day
In 2009, The Holy Cows held an event to spread excitement throughout our school around the time of competition: Holy Cow Spirit Day. The team created posters, made announcements, hung fliers, and made sure everyone knew when and how to dress up to show their spirit. We didn’t anticipate how overwhelmingly positive High Tech High’s response to this would be. Students and teachers school-wide came dressed in halos, cow ears, bells, horns, hooves, and spots, proclaiming their love for their school’s robotics team.

Now, our spirit day has become a tradition, and High Tech High annually decks out in black and white to support The Holy Cows before the San Diego Regional. It’s always inspiring to see how much spirit our school truly has for us. Students stop by the engineering lab, excited to see how our robot is coming along in its final days before ship. Our team mascot, Daisy the Cow, runs in and out of classrooms throughout the course of the day, hugging students and spreading team spirit to everyone. In the end, we even have the school director shouting, “Go Holy Cows!” This event allows everyone to see how much of an effect The Holy Cows have on High Tech High’s students, teachers, and directors. Every year, with their support and the excitement they help build, we can go into competition with great spirits and high hopes.

Pre-Ship Expo
The Holy Cows have assisted in the field management at the San Diego Pre-Ship Expo. The Pre-Ship Expo is held the weekend before ship, where a full-size field is set up and teams are invited to come and test and practice with their robots for the first time. Every year our team has been able to support many other San Diego teams in preparing their robot for shipping in the next few days.

San Diego FTC Championship
The Holy Cows assisted Team 1266 - The Devil Duckies in running the San Diego FIRST Tech Challenge Regional Competition at Madison High School on January 14th. We set up the fields, helped with scoring during matches, refereed, and assisted in cleaning up after the competition. The FTC Tournament is always fun for our team members and having the opportunity to see the excitement that FIRST brings to other students is something we never want to miss out on. We volunteer with the hopes that FTC events continue to be a part of the lives of the FTC participants and their experiences in FLL and FTC will inspire them to “graduate” as part of the FIRST community.

Fall Workshops
On Saturday, October 29th, 2011, The Holy Cows hosted the San Diego Fall Workshops for the third consecutive year. Over four hundred people were in attendance from twenty-two teams across the Southern California region. The workshops ranged from “How to Get Parents Involved”, to a “Rookie Crash Course”, to “Building a Drive team”.

"Making Strides” for Breast Cancer Walk
On Sunday, October 16th, The Holy Cows participated in the American Cancer Society’s annual “Making Strides against Breast Cancer Walk” in Balboa Park. Many of our team members attended, offering their services at the registration booth while the team’s mascot, Daisy, roamed around the area, taking pictures with breast cancer survivors and other walkers. Some of our own "Cows" participated in the walk and were cheered on loudly as they galloped across the finish line.

TechAmerica Awards
On Friday, October 28th, members of The Holy Cows attended the 14th Annual TechAmerica Awards. There, we mingled with industry professionals including those from Barney and Barney and also had the opportunity to meet with ViaSat, who had kindly sponsored us to attend the event again this year. ViaSat was gracious enough to provide our table at the awards ceremony, which included a three course meal, an excellent view of the stage, as well as semi-translucent mood balls as our table's centerpiece.

INCOSE Fundraiser
The International Council on Systems Engineering invited The Holy Cows to exhibit last season's robot in a fundraiser for technical education at the Midway. While demonstrating Daisy Maize, we spoke to many industry professionals about getting more funding for technical programs like FIRST. It was a great opportunity to spread the word of FIRST and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Lantern Festival
For the past five years, The Holy Cows have helped Albert Einstein Academy set up and host the their annual Lantern Festival. Instead of running the event, the parents are able to enjoy the time with their kids. Albert Einstein Academy PTA says that "the Lantern Festival would not be possible without The Holy Cows."

High Tech High FLL Qualifying Tournament
On Sunday, November 6th, The Holy Cows hosted a FIRST Lego League Qualifying Tournament at High Tech High. 19 different FLL teams from across San Diego County came bright and early for some good-spirited competition, and to demonstrate what they had learned throughout their research. Six teams moved on to the FLL Southern California Championship.

Veteran’s Day Parade
On November 11th, The Holy Cows robotics team volunteered at the San Diego Veteran’s Day Parade. Many of our team members held up banners and signs throughout the parade, and provided Veteran’s Day spirit with energetic cheering. After the day had ended, several of our members stayed behind to clean up equipment and dispose of trash.

Food Bank
On Wednesday, November 16th, The Holy Cows volunteered at the San Diego Food Bank by donating 450 pounds of food we had collected at Battle at the Border and our FLL Qualifying Tournament. Our team spent several hours helping packaged 483 boxes, over 14,400 pounds of food!

Rock Church FTC Scrimmage
On Saturday November 19th, members of The Holy Cows attended an FTC scrimmage at Rock Academy Church. Several of our team members gave informational presentations about various aspects of FIRST competitions like judging and pit speaking. The rest of the event was spent giving an additional hand to FTC teams that needed help.

Breast Cancer Three Day
In continuation of our partnership with the American Cancer Society, The Holy Cows volunteered as "Camp Angels" setting up tents, serving dinner and cheering on tired walkers at the annual Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. During three different shifts, team members committed over sixty hours for breast cancer research.

VEX Team Wins Regional Competition
After completely rebuilding their drive train and their arm during the North San Diego Regional VEX Competition, Team 1538W won the event with their alliance partners, teams 542 and 4215B. 1538W was a member of the 8th seeded alliance going into the 8th alliance, best of three, elimination tournament. Team 1538W qualified for the VEX Robotics Competition World Championships at the Anaheim Convention Center in April, where over 300 teams will compete for the World Championship title.

Women in Engineering Day
One hundred high school girls sat in the Lockheed Martin headquarters in Scripps Ranch for the SWE Women in Engineering Day on Friday, December 2nd, 2011. A few Holy Cow girls attended to help spread knowledge of STEM to other high schoolers. We talked about FIRST to the girls throughout the day and did a presentation during lunch and help run workshops during the event.

Tate's Birthday Bash
On Friday, December 16th, from 4pm to 12am, over two hundred of Tate’s friends stayed after school to raise money for Tate and his family. The Holy Cows hosted this fundraiser at High Tech High with a party atmosphere, complete with a movie room, multiple game rooms, and a LAN party game room. Ultimately, The Holy Cows raised over $2500 to support Tate’s Team and helped him celebrate his birthday away from home.