Mentors

Mentors bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the program from a wide variety of disciplines. They spend countless hours guiding and inspiring the students.

 

Our mentors are active participants in the aerospace industry, retired engineers, parents, Eagle Robotics alumni, teachers, and staff.

 

A big thank you to all our mentors, past and present, who have contributed to the success of Eagle Robotics throughout our many years.

Mrs. Pawlak

Nickname: Little Col.

Barbara Pawlak is a Non Engineering Mentor with LnHS Team 399. She is a registered Nurse who received her ASN from Antelope Valley College in 1986. She is currently a full time mom and student (working for her history degree), parent volunteer at LnHS, Girl Scout Coach, Gold Award mentor, Gold Committee member and Trainer for Joshua Tree GS Council, and Lego League Team coach for the Cole Middle School “Colebots”.  In her “spare time” ha ha ha she loves to hike, backpack, camp and off-road. She has hiked to the top of Mount Whitney, across the Sierra Nevada Mts along the High Sierra trail, and hiked to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon - twice in July (Not Recommended).

Mr. Chambers

Nickname: Chames

Dick Chambers, know as Mr. Chames (or the Ol’ Guy), is in his 7th year with the team. He graduated form High School in 1961, and went on to engineering school, along with his twin brother, Dan (who is still working as Electrical Engineer in the Twin Cities). His degree is a Bachelor Science Mechanical Engineering (1966) from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota.


Chames spent 17 years at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, Missouri; 2 years at Cessna Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, and 21 years at Northrop Grumman in Pico Rivera, and Palmdale, CA. He retired in August, 2005. He says 20 years was long enough work as a Structures Design engineer. He’s ready to take time to have some fun with his many hobbies and interests.


He has never been married, although came close once. He is an active church goer, and is an Elder in the Lancaster Presbyterian Church, just down the road from LnHS. He love to sing and has been in many Barbershop Choruses and Quartets through the years. He presently sing with his church’s Praise and Worship Team.


He is very active with youth work at his church, and of course, with the youth in Robotics. Chames likes the energy of the youth and what they can contribute to society. There is no question in his mind that the youth are the most valuable natural resource there is, and he feels strongly that anything he can do to mentor just a few kids toward a career in a science or technical field, or help them with a relationship with God, is truly worth his time.

Mr. Voracek

Nickname: The System

David Voracek is an Aerospace Engineer at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. He has a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State, and a MS in Aerospace Engineering from Northrop University and he is current working towards a MS in System Engineering from University of Southern California.  Over the past 20 years, he has worked as a Chief Engineer on several flight projects.  Currently he works in the NASA Dryden Projects office on new project development and integration.  David is also active in local High School sports as an official. He is President of the Mojave Desert Football Association and Instruction Chairman for football.

Michael Reed 

Nickname: 3D Reed

Mr. Reed is a Branch Supervisor for JT3 Corporation, supervising 80 people.  He is a 1981 Engineering Graduate from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has his Masters in System Management from USC.  He has worked on a variety of engineering projects, but his first job out of college involved gears, sprockets, hydraulics and mechanisms, just what the FIRST Robotics program is all about.

And many more past and present.

Mr. Shores

Nickname: Shock Waves

Justin Shores runs the Electrical Technology Department at Antelope Valley College. He has an Associates Degree from AVC in Electronics Technology. He also owns and operates Kill-A-Watt Electrical. Mr. Shores served eleven years in the US Navy as a Missile technician on Ballistic Submarines. He has four children, Jennifer, William, Michael and Wade. His wife is Tiffany and she is the local supervisor for Source Interlink.

Mr. Armstrong

Nickname: Butterfingers

Mr. Armstrong is a lead engineer for Lockheed Martin. Mr. Armstrong Graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1986.  Mr. Armstrong started working on the B-1B for Rockwell in 1986 and worked several different jobs for Rockwell over the first 10 years as the industry was downsizing.  Mr. Armstrong switched companies to Lockheed Martin in 2004.  Mr. Armstrong was one of the initial mentors that started the Eagle Robotics team in 1999, which produced the Pac-Bot robot.  Mr. Armstrong took off a few years and came back to the team with his son Brian in 2004 to work on Mr. Clean and stayed on for TNT, Buster 399 and this year’s robot “The Phantom”. 

Mr. Mehaffy

Nickname: Happy

Mr. Mehaffy is a Systems Test Engineer on the Northrop Grumman B-2 Bomber team.  He specializes in avionics and flight control systems.  He spent nine years in the Air Force as an Electronic Warfare Systems Specialist.  He has an Aerospace Engineering  degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautic University.  He has been a mentor with the Eagles for the last four years never failing to stress the importance of systems testing.  His favorite saying…”We’ll fix it in software!”