Laura Rhodes -2008 Woodie Flowers Nomination
“The Great Communicator”
Written By Haley Valletta
Edited by Locke Alexander, Steven Rhodes, and Alex Waschura
Team 100, Woodside/Carlmont Robotics
Every machine needs grease, oil, coolant; lubricant to make things run smoothly. A robotics team is no different: if there is nothing to keep things sliding along, it snags and clutches and eventually breaks. Our lead mentor, Laura Rhodes, through her dedication, sense of humor, and enthusiasm, keeps our gears from locking.
Laura has been teaching Team 100 students engineering and programming principals for the past 7 years. 
She keeps us engaged, and motivated, encouraging us to learn by building prototypes, CAD designing our ideas, using VEX models and designing intra-team engineering games. She never dismisses an idea, allowing students to fully explore their ideas and develop to their full potential. Perhaps her greatest asset is her sense of humor. Every failure is dealt with in good humor and that encourages us to try again and again until we succeed.
Laura is the epitome of gracious professionalism and leads by example. For instance, during the 2008 Portland regional, a nearby team suffered a complete programming failure. None of that team's programmers had been able to attend the regional, and it looked as though they were going to withdraw. When Laura heard about their problems, she spent the rest of the morning helping them recover their programming, despite the fact that we were competing against them later that day.
Communication and outreach are FIRST goals that Laura takes to heart. She motivates Team 100 members to volunteer at local community events and LEGO league competitions, having them run concession stands and be judges and Djs. She spends time each summer helping planning Northern California Robot Games (Calgames), and assists with the event's publicity. She has helped us write book articles and arranged for newspaper interviews with team members. She raises awareness for robotics throughout the community, arranging for us to talk to the school board and encouraging us to go to events like Physics Day at Great America.
Laura Rhodes goes above and beyond what is needed, dedicating countless hours to robotics. 
She is always on the lookout for new scholarships and new college programs for graduating team members, updating us with frequent emails about available opportunities. She is very talented at recruiting mentors, convincing many of our alumni to come back, even while they are still in college, to help teach the next generation of engineers and programmers.
But we are not the only ones that Laura inspires. Each year she teaches classes on robot control at workshops held by the Western Regional Robotics Forum (WRRF). She is a clear instructor and her classes are well attended. This year she assisted in the beta testing the new cRio, embracing its new features with enthusiasm. She spent countless hours at NASA working with the new controller, providing us with the unique opportunity to experience the system from very beginning. Many teams were not able to attend the beta testing, so she demonstrated the system for them at both Calgames as well as at a daylong Team 100 sponsored event at Woodside High School.
She is a wonderful role model for our team and for the community. 
When we asked people to describe her, a multitude of words came to mind: caring, respected, inspiring, honest, trusted, positive, skilled, balanced, and dedicated. Laura's laugh, hard work and engineering talents are the grease for Team 100's wheels and those of countless other teams in the area. We are lucky to have her and as a show of our thanks, would like to nominate her for the Woody Flower's Award.
is an award given out at each competition to one mentor put forth by his or her team for dedication and service to the team and to FIRST. Submissions are written by the students and judged by FIRST judges against the criteria set down at the beginning of each season. Winners from regionals around the world go on to be judged at finals in Atlanta.