Photo by Adriana Groisman
On Saturday, May 16, Delaware’s JrFLL, FLL and FTC regional director, Eric Cheek, and program volunteers were on hand to provide information and demonstrations at an outreach event hosted by Dover Public Library — Makersfest. To see photos and read more about the Makersfest event, click here. For info about coaching an FLL team, including the upcoming Ask An Expert Webinars, click here.
Student members of FSR’s amazing rookie FTC team, Rhyme Know Reason, looked back on the year— their challenges, opportunities, and accomplishments— and set goals for the coming season–
This past season (2014-2015) was our team’s rookie year. When we started out on our adventure we had no idea what to expect. We had no name, no history, no parts, and we didn’t even know if we could build a working robot. Thankfully, with the help of many gracious individuals, organizations and teams we made it through the year with a cool name, a reputation as an enthusiastic rhyming team, plenty of supplies, and a working robot!
We started the season by attending workshops and events that were great opportunities for a new team. One of these was a brainstorming session hosted by MOE and Dr. Cheek. After months of designing and building our robot we attended two qualification competitions in Pennsylvania. We were honored to win the Motivate Award and the Think Award.
After a lot of testing we decided that our first robot design was not working effectively. We ended up changing a major component of our robot the week before our first state– level competition. Although it was a good change our robot struggled at Delaware States due to a major mechanical issue. We ended up winning the Think Award again at this competition. Two of our members, Emma and Amy, were also chosen as finalists for the Dean’s List Award at DE states.
We finished our competition season by competing at Pennsylvania States. We won the Connect Award which was one placement away from qualifying us to Super Regionals.
However, our season was still not done. We helped FSR host the premier event of Dean Kamen’s documentary “Slingshot”. It was a big success and we raised a lot of money for the teams that are a part of FSR.
We’ll be working all summer to spread STEM throughout our community and to prepare for another great season.
To see the team at work offering robot demonstrations during Robotics Day event, click here To learn more about the team, visit their website….here.
Our teams work like crazy to solve engineering and design challenges and in the process apply science, math, coding, and communication skills. Colleges and universities recognize the potential in our students and their work. Millions of dollars of scholarships are available each year…to learn about some of the 2015 scholarships, click here.
Another special opportunity for students to demonstrate excellence in innovation begins this month. FRC and FTC students can participate in the drive to address some of the grand engineering challenges– clean water, reliable, useful data in healthcare, and more.
The Abbott Fund is sponsoring the FIRST Future Innovators Award. The 2015 competition launches May 12 with submission deadline of October 30, 2015. Top prize is a $5000 cash award, and two runners-up will win $2500 each. To learn more… Visit usfirst.org.
FSR invites all members of Delaware teams to apply their skills to something much bigger and help make the world a better place! Go teams!
First State Robotics 