Two weeks into Build Season....now what?

Wow the first two weeks have gone by so fast!
On January 8th (kick-off!!) most of the team met at an office of one of the team parents to watch the live broadcast of 2011 kick-off in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, a handful of other members drove down to the Kick-Off event in Dorton Arena and then pick up the kit of parts afterwards. As it got closer to the game announcement, excitement built no only at Dorton but also back at the office. And then Logomotion was introduced and the build season began! The rest of the day was spent drawing rough designs, defining the goal of the game and laying out six-week goals for each department.

After several days of unfortunate snow delays, the team became closer and closer to figuring out exactly what type of game position they wanted to play and the best way to construct the robot. Many drawings later we had a rough idea for the chassis and arm.

Week 2
The big question for week two was how did we want to construct the arm and what kind of chassis will we need to support it. After many discussions, idea submissions, drawings and brainstorming sessions the team has come to its final chassis/arm/ end effector combination. Also, the Chairman's Award department got started on the essay, executive summary and the Chairman's video. And the most exciting news for week 2? The team order 24 dozen beads to hand out at regionals (:

It's been a busy off-season...(Part 1)

It's just one week before the 2011 FRC game is announced and excitement on the team is definitely building. But before we dive into a new, challenging and possibly sleep deprived build-season, we'd like to offer a short recap of some of the things we've done over this 2010 off-season.

The keyword for The Flying Platypi's summer were demos, demos demos. Last summer the team did only seven demos to share our robot with the public and this off-season we wanted to really try harder to spread the message of FIRST as well as show off our robot. As a result, we've done a grand total of twenty-one demos this past off-season, tripling our number from last year. Here are some of my personal favorite demos and what made them particularly fulfilling.


- The Flying Platypi took the robot to General Greene Elementary's Technology Day in May to tell the next generation of FLL, FTC and FRC members about FIRST and how much fun it can be! The excitement of the students, ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade, really helped feed the enthusiasm of those members presenting. We answered questions from both the students, their parents and teachers about the robot, drive system, programing and even the name of our robot. A great time was had by all!

- Another fun demo the team did was the Chick-Fil-A "spirit" night in June. The first night the team held, all the money raised from food profit percentages was donated to the families of the West Virginia coal miners that experienced a mine tragedy earlier in the year. We drove the robot around in the parking lot, handed our information about the team, and explained about the cause for which we were fundraising. It was a great night and everyone had a fun time. (and great food too!)

- Out of all the demos that I went to this summer, my favorite was as the Palladium movie theater the weekend Toy Story 3 premiered. There were a lot of younger kids (and quite a few teenagers too) going to the theater to watch the final installment of the Toy Story trilogy and many of them were immediately drawn to the interesting robot driving around in front of the building. One particular boy came over to the robot when we had first arrived and was really interested in how it worked. Because we had just gotten there, the robot was not quite ready to drive and we hurried to set up the drive system so we could show this excited individual our robot. In our rush we asked the little boy if he would like to help another team member fasten the bumpers to the front, back and sides of the robot. With unexpected gusto, he gladly accepted our offer and continued to ask very detailed and interesting questions as he aided us. After everything was ready, he drove the robot around the area we were given and seemed to have a great time talking to all the team members that were present. I had a fantastic day and I hope everyone else did too.

- I think the most interesting and different demo I attended this year was the "Amigos y Hermanos" event that was sponsored by the Governor's Crime Prevention Committee. We were asked to demo our robot to a audience of mostly Hispanic children and their parents. It was my first time personally giving the entire presentation about our robot and, needless to say, I was very, very nervous. However, once the robot started to drive around, the interest and excitement of those attending skyrocketed and there were many, many people waiting for their turn to drive the robot (with some help from the other team members attending). My favorite "volunteer driver" was a little boy who was about three. He was too short to reach the controls and had to be lifted up on a chair just so he could press the button for our robot to kick the soccer ball. His genuine joy after pressing the button made all the nervousness over speaking totally worth it.