Peter Randall is one of our lead mentors. He started working at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in 2002 and is a ’69 alum of CHA. Peter is one of founding mentors of team 1218. In 2011, Peter won the Woodie Flowers Award at the Trenton Regional, an award for mentors who have an exceptional ability to lead, inspire and empower. Peter currently serves as the Chairman of Engineering and Robotics department at SCH Academy and oversees all levels of robotics programming at SCH. We are honored to have such a devoted and intelligent head mentor who believes that very early is on-time.
prandall@sch.org
Alissa Sperling is an Upper School Physics and Robotics Teacher at SCH and has worked at the school since 2013. Alissa serves as one of the lead FRC mentors and oversees the team logistics in addition to supporting the strategy and data, outreach, drive team, and awards sub-teams. Alissa is a volunteer coordinator for both our FRC and FLL hosted competitions. Alissa believes that anything can be accomplished with the right spreadsheet.
Rob Ervin is one of the co-founding mentors of FIRST Team 1218. He is a former Marine helicopter crew chief and has a degree in mechanical engineering technology. Rob taught at Chestnut Hill Academy from 1988-2013. He was the Director of Outdoor education, and throughout the years at CHA, taught wood shop, metal shop and jewelry making, middle school math and worked as the network administrator. Rob took on the task of managing the installation of hte schools network backbone and has spent over 20 wonderful years at the Rec, as the technical director for CHA/Springside Players. He is currently retired, but team 1218 is lucky to have him at the lab three days a week to support our mechanical projects.
Eileen Larkin is a Middle School Science and Engineering Teacher who made the transition from the pharmaceutical industry to education in the fall of 2019. Eileen is the lead mentor for middle school programs and oversees our six FLL Challenge teams and two FTC teams. Eileen is also an experienced FRC mentor with over 20 years of experience in mentoring and volunteering roles. In the region, Eileen regularly serves as a judge, judge advisor, and event manager. Eileen has participated in FIRST Robotics since she was fourteen years old along with her parents and siblings. To Eileen, FIRST robotics is literally her family.
Corey Kilbane is an Upper School Engineering Teacher at SCH. Corey joined SCH and team 1218 in the fall of 2023. Corey has nearly a decade of experience as an FTC coach at his previous school, and he continues to coach SCH's middle school FTC teams in addition to his FRC responsibilities. Corey is a dedicated "maker" and there's nothing that he can't CAD, print, or cut.
Youngmoo Kim is a robotics engineer and professor at Drexel University. Since 2023, Dr. Kim has also served as Drexel's Vice Provost for University and Community Partnerships. With extensive experience in robotics and coding, Youngmoo now mentors and coaches our programming team. He is committed to helping 1218 become the best it can be while still being involved with Drexel.
The above people are our current team mentors but we couldn't have gotten to where we are today without all of the wonderful people who have helped us in our development throughout the years. It is because of this that we would like to acknowledge their efforts by listing those individuals as Mentor Emeritus.
*Team 1218 Alumni
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