Our FRC Workshop

On Sunday, our team hosted an FRC workshop at Townsend Harris High School. We had 3 presentations prepared on safety, drive train and programming.

We had scheduled a practice run for all the presentations last Thursday but none of them were close to being done.  I was quite worried.

When we arrived at school (running a little late because we had to pick up coffee from Dunkin' Donuts), there was quite a turn out.  There were attendees from Francis Lewis, John Bowne, Cardozo and Thomas Edison High Schools.  The person from FIRST who organized the workshops was there as well.

All in all - the presentations went well.  There was some nervousness because they didn't practice enough.  Some parts could have been improved if given more time and feedback.
We ended up finishing early because we skipped lunch.  People ate a lot of bagels and danishes.

After that, we continued with inventory for a bit longer.  People are starting to get the hang of what to do.  Although problems with getting access to the internet - using the DOE vs school wifi - to look up information was a hindrance.

Tuesday's meeting was not very productive.  Since most of the veterans were participating in the Science Olympiad in-house testing, only the president was entertaining the rookies.  They covered some CAD and then sang a robot song that Mr R made up that morning.  I got a sneak preview of the Safety Animation and it looks pretty good so far.  It shows quite a lot of progress made since last year.  The next step after this is submitted is to train the rookies to take over when these seniors have graduated.

We got our peek at FIRST Choice and started looking at items to submit for our Priority List.  The Priority List processing is new.  The folks at AndyMark are offering this as an alternative to the first come first serve shopping when FIRST Choice opens.  This year we have 600 credits to spend.  There seem to be fewer pneumatics parts available - no compressors.  There are a lot of steel tracks however which made people wonder if that is a game hint.

There are about 3 weeks left until Christmas break.  Time to start planning and getting ready for Kickoff and Build Season!

btw - the Kickstarter project is still open - only $2600 pledged and about $5400 to go.  Please donate whatever amount you can - every $1 helps us get closer to the goal.  We don't get any of the money until we reach the goal.