Build Season: Week 4

So we are starting into the fourth week of build season and we only have two more weeks to go! Each department is making really great progress. It is so exciting, but at the same time kind of nerve wracking because we ONLY have two more weeks to go!

The mechanical department is working on putting the finishing touches on the chassis and working on the shooting mechanism. They have been working diligently for four weeks and are progressing smoothly. We are sticking with the plan we created at the beginning of build season, it really paid off to take the time to finalize all designs before we started building.

Programming has been busy training its new members, and they've made a lot of progress. The department has begun to actually program certain parts of the robot now! They have been meeting separately from the mechanical group because they have grown quite tremendously this year. They got a motor to move the other day and we thrilled about it! It is amazing how the little things can make us happy!

The marketing group has been working hard to get all of the awards that are going to be submitted, on the 16th of February. The Chairman’s award is coming along smoothly; making an outline of the essay at the beginning of the season has helped the writing team stay on track. The Woodie Flowers award is in the process of being cut down so that we don’t go over the maximum number of characters allowed.

We are also continuing our outreach events. We did a demonstration last week at Burlington Christian Academy in Burlington, North Carolina. We also have a demonstration scheduled for March 3rd for the Girl Scout 100th Anniversary Exhibition at the Dixie Classic Fair Grounds. We are going to be demonstrating the robot and talking about FIRST in general. We are going to have two tables one that will represent an all-girl FLL team that we started this year, The Flying Robo Puggles. The other table will represent our team. Both tables will have visuals, so that anyone who comes by can see what we have done and what the purpose of both of these programs are.

This season has been hectic so far, but everyone is working diligently. We have nineteen dedicated members and ten dedicated mentors who are here every night to help us! We are happy that our team has grown and are thrilled for the new additions to the mentoring team.

Now back to work to get the robot done!