We gave 2 Block Programming sessions in the morning, and one in the afternoon. We also gave two sessions of our judging presentations in the afternoon. We got the contact information of several people that were interested in coming to our scrimmages and wanted to know more about our presentations.
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This event was a great way for us to thank our sponsor, Catylator Makerspace, for allowing us to use their space and equipment. It felt really good to be able to help Mr. Morris out by showing how the makerspace could be used in real life. Hopefully the visitors will stay involved with his makerspace and use it. We need to follow up with the parent who was interested in FIRST LEGO League Junior and invite her to our future informational sessions.
This event was a definite success. We were able to talk to about 200 people about FIRST and also got 3 corporate contacts. Planning for this event was really tough because Ms. Rocke could not confirm our participation until the week of the event. At the event, there was a period of about 30 minutes when our robots were out of battery. That was poor planning on our part. We did not anticipate that we would not be able to use wifi at the event and we did not have a printed out sign-up sheet, so we were not able to get contact information of the people we talked with.
We were able to help the 10 future coaches by answering their questions, and providing our season-long support through adding them to our forum. One unique experience that we had was when one parent came up to us, and asked how she could donate to our team. She had attended our coaches bootcamp, (See Page D3-5) and was really grateful for the help she had received. We did not have an answer to this, as this wasn’t something we had been asked before. We should look into creating a donation process for our team. We also have to add interested parents to our forum, and send them information regarding our training sessions. Overall, this event had a measurable impact.
This event was very impactful to us. 8 of our 11 members were on FLL teams in years past, so giving back to the FIRST LEGO League community is close to our hearts. The information that we conveyed to the coaches will help them in their season. It was also awesome to meet the new senior mentor for FIRST in Maryland, Barry McGovern, and talk to him about our upcoming events. Last year, some of the coaches found the session either too basic or too advanced, but this year, all the coaches were on the same page and very engaged, so this was an improvement from last year.
This was the an interesting event because it was the first time we got to take our summer drivetrain projects (outreach bots) to an outreach event. We had five robots, and at any given moment there were at least 3 on the field. We let kids shoot balls from Gandalf into the goal attached to The Wizard (mobile vortex) (one of our new robots) so it was an interesting and fun challenge.
The mecanum drive robot, Merlin, and the 4 wheel omni robot were there for kids to just drive around and try out. We also brought an FLL Jr. activity where kids got to program a MILO bot using WeDo. We had a total of 5 people sign up for information on FIRST programs and our training sessions 4 people for FLL Jr. We also met 4 parents/families who were interested in forming a team together. Another cool thing was that we got to test the new version of our outreach perimeter, it got a little banged up but it is a great make on behalf of the team. Through this session, we were able to start 3 teams. It was amazing to see the excitement both kids and parents had after this session. One mom who had come to this session with 4 kids, felt overwhelmed because her husband is in the military. After we talked with her, she agreed to start a team. Most of the parents assembled into teams.
We ran two different activities at this event. We had the block stacking challenge with the pushbot, but we also had some legos for kids to play with. We had challenged the kids to build different things, like animals, buildings, spaceships, and other cool things. At our table, we had a lot of parents come up to us to talk about what our team is doing and what opportunities there are for their kids to participate in different FIRST programs. At this event, we had 7 children/parents interested in potentially joining a team or attending information sessions. We also met several potential technical mentors and interacted with a member of the City Council.
Visiting M3D was very exciting. We understand a lot more about 3D printing now just through learning about the production of 3D printers. Something we thought was really cool was the fact that the employees could assemble a M3D Micro+ in 10 minutes. We also had a lot of fun looking at parts that were printed from the Tough 3D ink filament, as they were flexible but very strong. We were told that parts printed from this material wouldn't break even when they were run over by a car. We asked JJ for advice on how to print the wheel case for our swerve drive and he told us that we were printing at the wrong temperature. We need to look into this and experiment with the temperature of our filament so that we will have stronger parts.
When we got to Launch we set up our robot to demonstrate shooting particles and driving. We made it an interactive experience by having Mr. McMahon and the Launch interns try to catch the particles when Gandalf shot them. We ended up drawing a crowd from the coworking space, and everyone was very impressed by our robot. Mr. McMahon was especially impressed, and was very excited to continue sponsoring us in the future. He told us that he is very attentive to our social media and watches all of our videos, as well as keeping up with our competitions.
This meeting was definitely one that stood out to us. We got to remember where we were when we first started FTC. We got to talk about all the basics of hardware and how the competition and awards worked and that was really fun. It was great to give back the experience and knowledge that we have gained over the past season. Also, the new coach and the kids were really interested in FTC and appreciative of the advice we gave. We should make sure to follow up with them throughout their season and ask if they would like us to attend some of their team meetings.
This was the inaugural year of FIRST global. The one thing that stood out through was the determination, spirit and energy of the teams. Most of them had to overcome challenges and work incredibly hard to get to the competition, and when they did, their passion and persistence really shone through. They were all incredibly friendly, from the hugs from the Indian moms to the fantastic hats and wigs of Teams Peru and Lebanon. The scale of the event really struck us as well. The entirety of South America and North America were represented, with about 85% of African countries and 75% of Asia and Europe. It wasn’t an exaggeration when stating that the whole world had come together. As if the 158 countries represented weren’t enough, the number of ambassadors and press who had come to support teams and the event was almost unreal. It was breathtaking when the teams were parading out and waving their flags during the Opening Ceremonies and forming the globe with the flashlights. Several teams that we are friends with and have seen at competitions were also volunteering such as 4924 Tuxedo Pandas, 6347 Geared Up, 5421 RM’d and Dangerous, and 10078 Enginerds. Several FRC teams were there as well, such as Centreville Robotics and Hall of Fame team 341 Miss Daisy. It was great to make new friends within the FIRST community and hopefully see them at future events and competitions. Overall, the event was an amazing experience, and a rare opportunity, since it will be in Mexico City next year.
Another thing that was really awesome was meeting Team Palestine! We worked with them to get them ready for the tournament. At the event, we got a lot of genuine interest, in addition to getting interest in volunteering at FIRST events and mentoring our team, thus achieving our first goal. We also got parents interested in getting their children onto robotics teams, as well as many kids interested in the process. We collected contact information from these parents and we plan to follow up with them by sending them information about any trainings we are running as well as try to get people interested in participating in the same FIRST programs into contact with each other and help them start teams. We got nine parents to sign up for more information, and many parents who we talked to say they will consider being a co-coach and providing meeting space for a newly forming FLL team in the area, thus achieving our second goal.
This tour provided a great opportunity to see how the principles and processes we use when building our robot are implemented in the industry. Recently we started learning about 3D printers and CAD so when we saw the SLA machines, it was really exciting to make the connection. Like our team, they had prototyping phases, build/design teams, and testing facilities. A notable difference however, was the emphasis they placed on testing. They tested for every scenario and every different situation, and in some cases built custom test rigs. In the next season, we should definitely incorporate a more comprehensive testing program for our robot.
We had the opportunity to talk to Stanley Black and Decker engineers about the mechanics and software of our robot and they gave us advice on how to improve. We took away some key points from this occasion. Two SBD employees were interested in potentially working with our team next season so we should follow up with them to see if they would be interested in coming to design reviews. We also talked to TechFire about how mechanisms operate on a larger scale in FRC. For example, their sweeper was a series of belts for speed and efficiency compared to the surgical tubing we use on our robot. And, the coach of TechFire, who also coaches an FTC team let us know about a workshop their team was hosting on August 19th for FTC teams and invited us to come. If we can get our summer drivetrain projects finished by then, we could display them at the event. This meeting was a good start. We received commitments from 5 of the 8 interested kids. They were ready to start a team at the conclusion of the session, which was exciting. The coach of the LEGO Bots will work with us to coach the new team. There were two parents who had older children going into fifth grade, and they asked us to send them information about FIRST LEGO League. We need to send them invitations to the FLL Information Session that our team is hosting on June 10th. One of the students who didn’t provide a firm commitment lives in Germantown and is looking for a team in his area. We know a former FIRST LEGO League Junior coach, Toshi Saxena, who had a team in the 2016-17 season, but she is moving to FLL. We should contact her to see if she knows of any people who are interested in starting a FLL Jr. team.
Our team met with MCPS staff Dr. Erick Lang and Dr. Scott Murphy. This meeting was a proposal to MCPS regarding a plan we had thought out. This plan was to implement the FLL Jr. program into a 6 week period of the MCPS 2nd grade curriculum. We prepared a presentation the highlighted the outreach that our team completes and how the FLL Jr. curriculum ties in with 2nd grade proficiency statements and the simple machines unit. Right now in schools all over the world, robotics education is very overlooked. But, soon, robotics will be dominating the job market. So as the world advances, schools need to as well. So implementing FLL Jr. into the 2nd grade curriculum is a great first step. A problem with just forming clubs is that for impoverished children, families don't have the time or resources to send their children to these classes/clubs. So, having it during school gives these children an opportunity. Dr Lang and Murphy were very interested and impressed with our proposal and thought that it was a great idea. Hopefully, this meeting forms a strong bond between our team and MCPS and has a end result of all MCPS elementary schools having a 2nd grade FLL Jr. program.
Interested parents and students from the Stonemill ES Science Fair came to one of our team member's house. Two members of our team gave a brief presentation on FLL Jr. and a coach from the FLL Jr. team, the Lego Bots gave a description of what being a coach meant, and her experiences during the last season. The event was successful, 5 of the 8 interested kids gave commitments to our team that they would pursue FLL Jr.
The PTA of Rock Creek Valley asked us to come to the school for their event. We took our outreach robot and our software bot. Not only were we able to captivate interest for FLL Jr. and FLL by getting contact info from 8 parents, but one parent was also interested in FTC or FRC. Parents and kids really thought the mecanum wheels were such a cool aspect of our robot and that it was really fun to drive.
At College Gardens, we took Gandalf, 2 FLL robots, and 1 FLL Jr. team with their season's model. During the event, we let children drive around the FLL robot, and shoot particles from Gandalf. We also connected with 3 PTA parents that were very interested in starting a FLL Jr. club at CGES after school. We also collected contact information from 13 parents.
The RMI annual gala was a very corporate centered event. 2 other FIRST team attended as well. During the gala, the Wizards spoke to many representatives from multiple corporations. This was an event that could \ be thought of like what the job of a student ambassador is. We explained to all the representatives what FIRST specifically FTC was. We demoed our robot and captivated their interest. But they asked some interesting question, for example, what our budget is and how we manage it. We realised that we were not talking to kids and adults, but employees from major corporations.
Fallsmead ES spring picnic was an important trial event for us. For the most part it was quite normal. We set up Gandalf, the FLL robots, and our table with flyers, information, and our roller shades. We demoed our robots in the playground and got a lot of interest. But this event was not like any others we have had before. This time, we had a new form of contact collection. We created a google form that people could sign up on using a laptop. This was is easier because it mean there is no eligible writing, and the contacts go directly to a google sheet. Also, we set up an automatic response so our contacts know we did not forget about them.
The YPO meeting at St. Andrew's was a meeting that Dean Kamen attended. YPO (young people's organization) met together to discuss FIRST and robotics. Before Mr. Kamen's speech, the Wizards set up an FLL Jr, FLL, and FTC table to engage the children and adults that came to the event about those 3 levels of FIRST. We demoed our robots for all 3 levels, and spoke to staff, parents, kids, and important people like the president to the association and Mr. Dean Kamen himself. At the event there were also 2 FRC teams to show that aspect of FIRST. There was quite a lot of interest and we collected parent's contact information.
Rockville Science Day was located at Montgomery College. We ran this event in our classic "Engage" style. We brought two of our FTC robot and demoed it to the public. We also had our activity called FLL season which tries to get kids to use basic programming to make an FLL robot go around a small course. There were some other FTC and FRC team demoing their robots as well. And, we collected intrested parent's contact information to help them join a team.
We hosted a scrimmage at the USRA facility in Columbia, Maryland. This event was targeted towards Maryland teams advancing to worlds, though all Maryland teams were welcome to attend. The goal of this scrimmage to to prepare for worlds, by giving all the teams attending driver practice in a competition simulation.
We hosted the robotics area at the annual TPMS STEAM Night. WE had 4 FLL teams, 4 FTC teams and 2 FRC teams attend to engage the school and help inspire the kids to join STEM activities. We had over 1000 people come and visit our robots and we were even able to drive full FTC Matches. Pictures from this event can be found at this link.
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