Oxon Hill High School teachers provide needed supervision during team meetings, technical expertise, overall guidance and dispute resolution. We know that it will be a sacrifice for our teachers who are already managing heavy work schedules to help us with this, but the more teachers we have on board, the more likely it will be that our robotics team will be successful and continue in future years.

     We look to our mentors to provide professional expertise and management tips so that we can design and build a competitive robot, given the short time frame that we have to work with (six weeks). We also need our parents and guardians, Oxon Hill High School alumni and community members to help with logistics, transportation, providing snacks/food for team meetings and encouragement. We will invite Oxon Hill graduates return to our school to volunteer, and we will create a roadmap to build relationships within our community. We hope to lead after school robotics initiatives (with high school students serving as mentors for younger students), and visit feeder middle schools and local elementary schools to promote academics, science and technology. We currently support John Hanson Montessouri Elementary School by having our seniors serve as judges for their annual science fair.

     After returning to Sweden in 1863, inventor Alfred Nobel concentrated on developing nitroglycerine as an explosive. Several explosions, including one (1864) in which killed his brother Emil and several other persons, convinced authorities that nitroglycerine production was too dangerous. They shut down further experimentation with nitroglycerine in Stockholm. Alfred Nobel had to move his experimentation to a barge on Lake Mälaren. Although Alfred was sad, he was not discouraged and kept on trying. In 1864 he started mass production of nitroglycerine. Despite the challenges, dynamite brought Nobel a great fortune, which he used to found the Nobel Prize, which is occasionally awarded to those who persevered through critical moments in a process despite the risk of failure.

     On November 24, 2008, Dynamite Robotics lost a critical member of our team to cancer. Mr. Joseph Mrad was a beloved teacher at Oxon Hill High School since August 1999. He was a whiz at woodwork, and all things mechanical, including metal shop and electronics. Our machine shop at the school was temporarily closed due to lack of expertise with the tools and equipment. Although we are sad, we are not defeated as Dynamite dedicated our rookie season to the memory of Mr. Joseph Mrad, former Technology Education teacher for the Science and Technology Program at Oxon Hill High School.