About Us
Saline Singularity
Saline Singularity, 5066, is a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team based out of Saline High School in Saline, Michigan. Since its founding in 2013 with only a few members, Saline Singularity has greatly expanded to around 30 members and 5 mentors. Our mission is to help develop the next generation of leaders in STEM while promoting the FIRST message and STEM in our community. Singularity prides itself on being a student-focused and student-led team to the fullest extent possible. Our mentors are there to advise, but it is the students who make the decisions.
Our team is split into six subteams: mechanical, electrical, programming, computer-aided design (CAD), business, and scouting. Our season starts with the new game release in January of each year and ends at the end of April. During our build season, the team has six weeks to build an entire robot from scratch based on the year’s unique challenge and each subteam works closely with one another to ensure that we are on task with building the robot and that the team is running smoothly. Following our build season, the team then competes in two different qualifying events, with the hope of advancing to states and worlds.
Additionally, members from the Saline Singularity high school team have worked to create opportunities for younger students to participate in FIRST. Our members help mentor the two FIRST Tech Challenge middle school teams and the FIRST Lego League elementary school team in our school system. Saline Robotics teams are dedicated to spreading the message of FIRST and STEM and have participated in numerous community events, including the Saline Christmas Parade, Homecoming Parade, the Saline Fair Community Showcase, and the Ann Arbor Maker Faire to show our community the opportunities that are available in STEM fields. Saline Singularity has also hosted several community STEM workshops: the Q27 Elementary Robotics workshop with team 6101 Strange Quarks, a Girls Robotics Workshop to recruit more women to STEM and the team, and others to directly recruit people to the team.
What is FIRST?
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization that was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 to promote interest in young people regarding STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). FIRST, whose influence has spread to countries all over the world, not only focuses in allowing students to gain firsthand experience in engineering fields but also on creating well-rounded individuals. There are several different levels of FIRST for students of all grade levels; FIRST Robotics Competition for high schools, FIRST Tech Challenge for middle school, and FIRST Lego League for elementary students.
However, FIRST and the FIRST Robotics Competition is about more than robots. Teams and participants are encouraged to spread STEM and give back to the communities that support them. As any FIRST student can tell you, the spirit of FIRST is a term known as Gracious Professionalism. This essential ethos to FIRST is best summed up by the man who coined the term, distinguished FIRST advisor Dr. Woodie Flowers:
Gracious professionals learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness in the process. They avoid treating anyone like losers. No chest thumping tough talk, but no sticky-sweet platitudes either. Knowledge, competition, and empathy are comfortably blended.
FIRST also operates on the concept of Coopertition. Being able to compete with opposing teams is one thing, but being able to treat those opposing teams with kindness and learn from them is what FIRST teams strive for through the idea of coopertition. This allows individuals to learn humility and better understanding of their peers. Though a big part of FIRST robotics is competing, the ideas of gracious professionalism and coopertition urge people go a step further and learn from the people around them.
