Monarch Robotics - Providing Ingenuity & Experience The Monach Robotics team is truly a unique student experience at Mater Dei. Guided by Mr. Mel Morallos ‘02 and amazing parent and alumni mentors mentors Joe Frayne ’96 (Blizzard), Paul Hinz (Boeing), Rick Potter (Boeing) and Paul Sicking (Siemens), the team spends countless hours after school using the engineering design process to design, build, and continue to improve their robot. The students employ Computer Aided Design (CAD), power tools, 3D printers, the CNC machine, and write thousands of lines of Java code to program a functioning robot to meet the challenges of a three-day competition where over 50 teams pit their innovations against one another. Students can be called to create a robot that can shoot foam balls into a target 10 feet off the ground that can also pick them up and navigate across a field while five other robots are trying to accomplish similar tasks. Students often join Robotics with little to no experience, but in just one year they learn so much. Current students interested in this field can take Robotics & Engineering or AP Computer Science to give them the foundational skills--or just to learn engineering/ problem solving while they’re involved in MD’s many other activities. Mr. Morallos shares one of his favorite stories of an MDHS alum putting her robotics skills to use while studying aerospace engineering. “She told me that she programmed a robot to move every 15 minutes in the study room because the motion light sensor would turn off while she was in there. She could stick to her studies and never be in the dark!”
Faculty-Staff Spotlight: Mrs. Shannon Brown ’92, RN One of the latest Monarchs to return home to Mater Dei is Mrs. Shannon (Rhodes) Brown ‘92, School Nurse. “Never in a million years did I think I would be working at Mater Dei, but sometimes God directs you to places you would never expect! she shared. A graduate of Sts. Simon in Jude, Shannon was a four-year member of the MD swim team and enjoyed Campus Ministry Retreats. Outside of school, she worked as a Huntington Beach City lifeguard, combining her love of the ocean with her call to help people. A third generation nurse, Shannon always knew she was destined to follow in the footsteps of her mother, an ER nurse, and grandmother, an OR nurse. She attended Arizona State University and completed her Master’s in Nursing at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. Her specialty is in pediatrics. Shannon’s impressive career includes working as a Pediatric Oncology Nurse at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, as the Bone Marrow Transplant Coordinator at CHOC, and at UCLA as a Pediatric Liver/Small bowel Transplant Coordinator. She accepted her first leadership position at Hoag Hospital and later served as the Director of Nursing at Mission Hospital. When asked about transitioning to Mater Dei, she said, “I loved working in the hospital setting for 20 years, but found that I was becoming frustrated with the business of healthcare and was ready for a change.”
Shannon has implemented new programs and services in the areas of health and wellness for both faculty and staff at Mater Dei. This initiative has brought new visitors on campus including students from Santa Ana College’s Nursing Program and therapy/ companion dogs to help with stress and anxiety for anyone on campus. Shannon has also worked on building protocols to bring the Health Service Office up to current practice by adopting the application of Appryse, an electronic health records system. She is always looking to expand this office and dreams of it growing to function like a college campus health center. “Our students spend 8-12 hours a day at Mater Dei, so finding time to see a provider is challenging at best. I would love to offer a host of health services for our students, such as physicals, vaccines, urgent care visits as well as mental health services. You can’t care for the body without addressing the emotional health of a student,” Shannon shared. Mater Dei is so lucky that Shannon answered the call to come home. Her passion for our students is evident and she will no doubt inspire more generations of Monarchs to pursue a career in nursing or one that involves helping people. “My hope for our students is that they follow their passion and remain open to whereever they are being called to go. Mater Dei has prepared you to be anything you want to be!” 15
