‘We Know That We’re Making Their Lives Better’: Ford Performance Engineer Giving Back to High School Robotics Program That Shaped Him

By day, program analyst Marc Antinossi is busy helping make our Ford Performance products like the Mustang GTD the envy of the enthusiast community. But after business hours, he redirects those skills to help Detroit-area high schoolers create robots on the FIRST Robotics circuit and prepare the next generation of engineers for the future. 

A job at Ford brought Antinossi back to the Detroit area 10 years ago, at which point he became an alumni mentor on his former high school robotics team. The group of about 20 combines students from Brother Rice and Marian high schools in the northern Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. Antinossi is one of about 10 mentors on the team, having joined shortly after graduating from Michigan Technological University with a degree in mechanical engineering. Now the lead advisor for Mechanics, one of three subdivisions of the team along with Controls and Business, Antinossi dedicates his time to the team over multiple nights each week and on weekends. He also takes advantage of volunteer days afforded through the Ford Volunteer Corps to make the schedule work. 

Participants in FIRST Robotics learn advanced concepts and college-level topics through the course of each season’s new challenge. This current prompt, Reefscape, is an underwater environmental sustainability-themed event. Antinossi said participation in the program is a natural path to a career in various engineering fields such as design and release, electrical, body, chassis, and powertrain, in addition to advanced manufacturing such as 3D printing. But there are other routes. He noted that students can also pursue non-engineering roles in marketing and communications in areas such as social media management, brand promotion, and legislative advocacy. 

Antinossi feels rewarded seeing students’ progress from rookies at the beginning of their journey to having learned Computer Aided Design (CAD) and eventually building functional components and a successful robot. He can pinpoint the moment a new member has gotten hooked on robotics.

Mentorship is also helping Antinossi hone his skills for his work at Ford. 

“It’s a pretty symbiotic relationship,” he said. “It definitely goes both ways because mentoring these kids improves my management skills at robotics, but also working with teenagers and kids who are shy helps me with my soft skills at Ford where I might be working with new and different people and needing to understand their personalities and work style.” 

Building robots, building futures 

Competition season began recently with Antinossi and Co. advancing to the state finals following a heartbreaking early end to their season a year ago. They were also recognized with the FIRST Impact Award, which rewards community outreach, for the first time in the team’s nearly 25-year history. The team has also won an engineering award at least once per season for the past several years.  

To top it off, Antinossi was nominated by his team for a mentorship award.