Sharing and Teaching Kids at Outreach at FLL qualifier “Sharkfest”11/17

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By Anand

Sharing and Teaching Kids at Outreach at FLL qualifier “Sharkfest”11/17 

Prior to our Open House on 11/28 we took time out to attend and showcase our robot and our team at the Nov 17th FLL qualifier at Baker Middle School along with the Troy High Hammerheads at "Sharkfest".   

We didn't know what to expect and we were so excited to see so much going on at the event, the FLL teams were competing and in between, they were coming into the cafeteria to explore a bunch of STEM activities that the Hammerheads prepared.   We also had a blast participating in some of the activities at the tables. 

And, the FRC team was on the stage showing a super cool robot that threw a big bouncy ball that we got to catch and throwback.  It helped us see what the next step in First will be, FRC.  

We had an FTC field set up by the Troy team that helped us show everyone all about "Smitty" and we fixed our wheels that day too - and added the new Stealth wheels in the rear of Smitty cause he was having lots of issues before that with getting stuck on the crater.    It was cool to be fixing him while people watched.   We loved sharing "Smitty's" improved traction over the crater and explained the changes we made that helped.   Our driver team showed kids how to use a controller and how it was different than a regular xbox one.   We explained how we programmed our controller to work and let them drive our "Smitty" with our drivers showing them what to do.   

I personally talked with and showed kids what electronics and sensors do on our Robot and they were amazed that I knew so much.  But I told them when I started I really didn't even know how to connect my sensors or motors to a Rev Hub.  Our coaches and engineering volunteers that came to meetings showed us what to do and then we learned how to do it as well.  

They asked me "how did we build our Robot" and they were surprised that he started kinda like a lego kit, just a bunch of strange new metal pieces and bolts and screws that had pictures to guide us.

 We did lots of demos and talking and educating families and kids at the event.  We interacted with and 100's of people at the event.  

 Our mentor saw that we were nervous at first and showed us how to become more confident in speaking to large groups of strangers and how to approach people to invite them to see what our team was all about.   By the afternoon some of our team even walked around to other areas of the event to show our Open House flyers and our High school mentors said we had done a good job too.   We were nervous at first but then it became so much fun to teach things to kids and share what we learned.  

 We've come a long way from 11 of us meeting at my grandma's home at the end of Sept for the first time. 

Here are a few photos from that day: 







Comments

  1. TechnoKnightJanuary 9, 2019 at 5:35 AM

    Cool. Thank for letting me drive at the competition.👌

    ReplyDelete

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