Today we met to organize and take an inventory of all of the parts. We used an organizing box with compartments for all of the materials. First we had one person (usually Adelaide, Izzie, or Rachel) read off the part's ID number, piece name, and how many there were. Ava wrote this down on a table, and also the coordinate of where the piece number was. This way, if we are looking for a particular piece, in the future, we can find the name/ ID number on the list and know the coordinates of where it is. We set it up where L(1,1) is in the bottom left corner on the lower compartment. Isabella also wrote down the ID number on a piece of tape which we stuck onto the side of the compartment where the piece was going. It ran very smoothly and we are excited to start building this Tuesday!
We also set up a TeamSnap account, so that we can coordinate amongst ourselves about times that we can meet. We are all very busy with other extracurricular activities, which means that we get a lot of awesome, smart, well-rounded people, but we are also busy a lot, and there is not a time outside of Sunday mornings that we can all meet, so we are trying to make sure everyone can meet at least twice a week, (once on Sundays and one time during the rest of the week).
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Today we met around 9 o'clock. First we hand wrote thank you cards to FTC for their rookie team sponsorship and Satcom Direct for their generous monetary sponsorship.We quickly got to work. Rachel, Ava and Adelaide found the models with the same numbers (the matching pieces), and read them to Isabella and Izzie. Then, they crossed the models off from the index. We found out that we are missing a couple pieces; which we will have to contact FTC about.
Today we started working on our bios for our Engineering notebook. At first, we looked through the bios of two other accomplished teams, the Lightsabers and Got Robot?. We identified some things that we liked, and things that we would change. We then began creating a title page, and then each wrote our bios. We wrote down how long each of us were in FLL, that it was our first year in FTC and activities we like doing.
Today we also decided to send our sponsorship proposal out to two local companies, a museum called the Bakken, and a hardware store called Stegreans. At the end of the meeting, we decided that we wanted to create a meeting plan for our next meeting so that we would make sure we got specific things done. Today we downloaded the MIT app inventor onto our android phones. We got familiar with how the app works, and we made fun short games. This helped us learn the program better, and decide if we thought it was the best option for us to use for programming throught the year. While some things about this we thought was nice, were things like programming in a format like scrtach, with blocks to drag in, and the fact that it was very clear what the robot was doing. With this however, we foudn a couple disadvantages, like for some programs, you can not do multiple tasks at once, and also there were some programs that were unable to be completed.
We talked a lot about outreach, especially mentoring younger teams at our old school, Lake Harriet. While the robotics program there is quite successful, more and more younger students are joining every day, which causes an overload of students for the coaches to teach the basics. We decided to split into groups and volunteer our time twice a week to help mentor younger teams, focused in October and November when the main programming for the school competition is beginning. We also decided to volenteer our time at other FLL tournaments, to help judge and spread the word about FTC. |
This blog covers details about our outreach events and other events that are important to our team, and our season.
AuthorHi, we are the Rubies, FTC team 9890. To learn more about us, visit the "About Us" page Archives
April 2016
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