The core val­ues of C.O.R.E. are the foun­da­tion for this team. With­out these ten val­ues, this team would cease to ex­ist.

Community

C.O.R.E. is built around the foun­da­tion of com­mu­nity. We come to­gether in or­der to make our ro­bot as good as can be. We com­bine three high schools, two acad­e­mies, and even sev­eral home schooled stu­dents. We also give back to the com­mu­nity as a whole, through hold­ing food dri­ves, help­ing at the Christ­mas Clear­ing Coun­cil, and rais­ing money for the Sal­va­tion Army by ring­ing bells. In or­der to give back to the FIRST or­ga­ni­za­tion, we have hosted an FLL tour­na­ment and have helped with con­ces­sions for an­other tour­na­ment.

Organization

With­out or­ga­ni­za­tion, there would be no team. Our team men­tor-ed­u­cated, but stu­dent run. The stu­dents are the builders, de­sign­ers, coders, and pub­lic re­laters. They make the de­ci­sions while men­tors pro­vide in­put. Ad­di­tion­ally, we use many sys­tems to en­sure ef­fi­cient or­ga­ni­za­tion in­clud­ing Google groups, Google docs, Zoho, GitHub and CAD.

Respect

Re­spect is a large as­pect of C.O.R.E. We pride our­selves on be­ing a paragon of FIRST’s con­cept of Gra­cious Pro­fes­sion­al­ism. Our stu­dents re­spect our men­tors and men­tors re­spect stu­dents. With­out re­spect keep­ing stu­dents and men­tors in bal­ance, C.O.R.E. would not be nearly as pro­duc­tive of a com­mu­nity.

Everyone Matters

In C.O.R.E., every­one mat­ters. All sub teams are treated equally, and every­one will find some­thing to do. Every­one who wants to be in C.O.R.E., can be.

VEX

Since C.OR.E 2062 started par­tic­i­pat­ing in VEX five years ago, we have started VEX league night for mid­dle school stu­dents, in ad­di­tion to two com­pe­ti­tions for mid­dle and high school stu­dents. C.O.R.E has in­tro­duced over 200 stu­dents to VEX and ed­u­cated them in STEM prin­ci­ples. VEX has trans­formed it­self into a vi­tal tool to spread the mes­sage of FIRST and STEM to younger stu­dents, and is an es­sen­tial part of our team. We use VEX as a tool to help rook­ies be­come more ori­ented with the en­gi­neer­ing ideas and prin­ci­ples.

Active

C.O.R.E. is very ac­tive in pro­mot­ing FIRST and STEM in the com­mu­nity. We have dis­played our ro­bot to el­e­men­tary school stu­dents at a lo­cal el­e­men­tary school’s Math Night for the past two years, and we are look­ing for­ward to it be­ing an an­nual event. Through our team’s suc­cess, we have in­spired the School Dis­trict of Wauke­sha to cre­ate a K-8 STEM char­ter school to help pre­pare stu­dents for pro­grams like ro­bot­ics or the En­gi­neer­ing Acad­emy and the tech­nol­ogy of the fu­ture. C.O.R.E. is not just a team that meets dur­ing the build and com­pe­ti­tion sea­sons. We meet up dur­ing the off sea­son and con­tinue to grow to­gether, through vol­un­teer­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and get-to­geth­ers such as pic­nics and the oc­ca­sional Ul­ti­mate Fris­bee game.

Learn

When we work on the ro­bot, we use the prin­ci­ples we learn in school. C.O.R.E. and the Wauke­sha En­gi­neer­ing Prepara­tory Acad­emy are very closely linked. Many stu­dents in the acad­emy are in C.O.R.E. and are drawn in by their love of en­gi­neer­ing. You learn a lot while work­ing on the ro­bot. Many peo­ple join a sub­team that they don’t know much about, but learn through the vet­eran stu­dent mem­bers and men­tors. The learn­ing con­tin­ues when grad­u­ated alumni come back to be­come men­tors.

Unity

C.O.R.E. unites the five Wauke­sha high schools. Nor­mally fierce ri­vals, Wauke­sha stu­dents are brought to­gether to help each other build a ro­bot. The part­ner­ship doesn’t end af­ter build sea­son, how­ever. It is not un­com­mon for our team to get to­gether to play Ul­ti­mate Fris­bee, or go to a laser tag arena. This sum­mer, we had our fifth an­nual team pic­nic. Dur­ing down­time in our com­pe­ti­tions, we will usu­ally go sight­see­ing in the city we are in.

Entrepreneurship

C.O.R.E.’s sus­tain­abil­ity is very im­por­tant for our fu­ture. We en­sure our con­tin­u­a­tion through sup­port from our spon­sors, fundrais­ing, and grants. We fundraise through sell­ing first aid kits, raf­fle tick­ets, and con­ces­sions. In ad­di­tion to that, we as­sist in setup and tear­down at FLL tour­na­ments and re­ceive a do­na­tion for our ef­forts. But the ma­jor­ity of our in­come comes from our spon­sors such as Rock­well Au­toma­tion and GE Vol­un­teers. We pro­vide all of our spon­sors with up­dates so that they know what is go­ing on. C.O.R.E. has man­aged to stay fis­cally strong dur­ing these eco­nom­i­cally dif­fi­cult times be­cause of the care­ful plan­ning of our team.

Safety

Safety is very im­por­tant to the team. Be­fore build sea­son, men­tors give safety demon­stra­tions to the en­tire team. Every mem­ber must pass a safety exam with a per­fect score. Every­one knows the lo­ca­tion and how to use the fire ex­tin­guisher, the bat­tery skill kit, the first aid kit, and the eye wash sta­tion. Dur­ing com­pe­ti­tions, we hand out pam­phlets to other teams and even hang posters ad­ver­tis­ing safety in our pit. We in­tro­duce stu­dents to in­dus­trial prac­tices such as the 5 S’s prin­ci­ples, Ma­te­r­ial Safety Data Sheets, Lock Out Tag Out, and risk mit­i­ga­tion in prepa­ra­tion for jobs in en­gi­neer­ing. We have re­ceived nu­mer­ous awards for safety in­clud­ing the 2008 and 2012 Cham­pi­onship Safety Award and seven re­gional Un­der­writ­ers Lab­o­ra­tory In­dus­trial Safety Awards.