About

Merrimack Valley Robotics, Inc was incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2016. We are an IRS approved 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All of our members are volunteers who donate there time.

Mission Statement

The mission of Merrimack Valley Robotics, Inc. is to promote growth of Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) activities for students in kindergarten through 12th grade within the Merrimack Valley and surrounding areas of Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.

History

Merrimack Valley Robotics (MVR) was formed in 2016 initially to provide a legal entity to support FIRST Robotics Competition Team 5962 that was engaged in their rookie season. Team 5962 had student members from the Massachusetts cities and towns of Chelmsford, Dracut, Haverhill, Lowell, Methuen, Tewksbury, and Salem NH, hosted by the Francis College of Engineering at UMASS Lowell.

While working to form Merrimack Valley Robotics, the founders became aware that in spite of a desire from parents, teachers, and administrators to have after school STEM based activities for K-12 students, there were often barriers with regard to funding, operation, and organization that prevented or delayed getting programs in place.

These very real challenges were viewed and accepted as an opportunity and a need for our organization to help to make K-12 STEM programs more accessible to students throughout the Merrimack Valley area. There is a great value to introduce students to STEM activities, whether in a public school, private school, home school, in-school, after-school or out-of-school environment. The challenge is to make these activities available to as many students as possible, as soon as possible.

We understand the many opportunities and challenges; and our goals are to act as an incubator to foster growth of STEM-related activities in community , to overcome barriers, and to help to build bridges to enable these programs a strong start and opportunity for continuation.

In our first year (FY 2016), we were focused on enabling FRC Team 5962 (grades 8-12). In our second year (FY 2017), we added a program to provide up to 24 FIRST LEGO League Jr teams (K-4). In our third year (FY 2018), we added a program to provide 2 FIRST LEGO League teams (5-8). These experiences gave us the opportunity to learn many lessons which will help us as we plan to continue and grow our support of these programs. As we continued to offer and strengthen the FRC and FLL Jr programs; we then began to offer a FIRST LEGO League program for grades 4-8. We continue to learn and to improve these programs with the continued goal of offering STEM-based activities for students from Kindergarten through High School

Since our incorporation in 2016, Merrimack Valley Robotics (MVR) has sponsored FRC Team 5962 (grades 8-12). The team is hosted by the UMASS Lowell College of Engineering and they meet on the UMASS Lowell North Campus. We have since expanded our programs to include FIRST LEGO League Jr (grades K-4) and FIRST LEGO League (grades 5-8). Our model in for these grade programs is to pay for registration, and to provide materials and assistance for local schools to run the program as an after-school activity.

Volunteers

We are all volunteers, offering hundreds of hours (or more) of service each year to help the several programs we support in many ways.

Michael J Johnston, President

Jamie Woodhead, Vice President

Michael H Riendeau, Treasurer

Anthony J Iarrapino, Director

Matha Cohn, Director

Stephen M Cremer, Director

Joseph C Hartman, Director

John J Witkos, Director