Woodie Flowers was born in Louisiana, USA and was a professional mechanical engineer. He worked as an assistant professor at  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) next to Herb Richardson in the class, "Introduction to Design and Manufacturing."  The class requires building a robot and putting it through challenges. When he took over the class it became one of the most popular classes at MIT. He made the competitions more difficult and exciting as the years went on, and eventually the competitions were televised on the PBS show "Discover the World of Science". Woodie even became the show's host in 1990.

 

He then joined with Dean Kamen to create a project that will celebrate the culture of technology and science. In 1993, they released the project that is now well known as FIRST. He was the National Adviser to FIRST and worked as an MC, while being looked up upon by inspired students from across the world. At the VEX Robotics World Championship in 2017, Woodie Flowers was inducted into the STEM Hall of Fame. The FIRST Woodie Flowers Award is given to an adult mentor who has done an outstanding job of motivating students through communication while also challenging the students to be clear and succinct in their communications.

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Woodie Flowers was a very special person to 772. We always looked up to him as a mentor, and many of our students were inspired by his work. Our team had the chance to meet Woodie when he attended the Windsor Essex District Event back in 2019. We were thrilled to have him sign our 2018 Detroit Championship Engineering Inspiration Award, give our students words of wisdom, and have him included in our 2019 Windsor Chairmans Award team picture. Some of our students even got to sign his shirt! 

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Woodie will always live on in our memories. We hope 772 can inspire as many students as he has.