TEDYouth 2014 and updates

On Saturday, I chaperoned a few of the team members to TEDYouth 2014 in the beautiful Brooklyn Museum.  It was our first time at such an event.  The auditorium was full of middle and high school kids as they listened to many speakers who were experts on a wide variety of topics including geology, astronomy, leeches, music robotics, and bio-engineering.  In the Beau-Arts Court next to the auditorium, they had tables with activities/displays manned by either the speakers themselves or TED personnel.  You can tell TED is well sponsored - they provided free lunch, snacks and t-shirts to participants.  From what I could see, the kids had a great time.  My only peeve is that the chaperones who couldn't fit in the back mezzanine of the auditorium had to watch the live stream on TV in the Beau-Arts Court.  The team should try to go again next year.

In other areas, adoption of Points Tracker is going well.  There were some issues encountered in the first couple of days - mostly user error from lack of training or rather users didn't pay attention to directions until they tried to enter in their points.  Even then, they didn't read the directions written on the first tab or look at the training video.  I had to manually correct some entries until finally, I added a function to allow them to delete their entry and re-enter it again.  People seem very trigger happy to click the Save button before they finish filling in the fields.  I added a screen shot with instructions and arrows which seems to help a bit.

Inventory is in full swing.  We, of course, had to add an extra incentive for people to stay and do inventory since it is very detailed and tedious work.  Again, lack of training was an issue and I had to manually adjust things that were done incorrectly - some kids created spreadsheets on their own instead of using the scripts so the data was not linked up.  The information they entered also was of varying quality.  The Inventory Secretary was busy learning to manage this project - helping people look up items, assigning bins, training, etc.

I am happy to report that one of the kids volunteered to work on the website and is actually making progress.   I also asked for volunteers to write the team blog and a few people were interested if they can rotate the responsibility.

The team is also preparing for the FRC Workshops that we are hosting on Sunday.  We are a little less prepared than we were for last year's Beta Test presentation.  From what I saw yesterday, it needed some more work and practice.  We have 3 presentations:

• Make it Go: The Programming Very Basics
• SAFETY!!!
• Improving on the Kitbot or the Basic Drivetrain

Yesterday was the last of our series of bake sales and it was a big one.  Since it was dress rehearsal for the school's SING performances and there was a basketball game, we had a lot of customers. Never mind that a parent brought in sliders from White Castle - over 200 of them!  The security guard was so happy - she had been craving WC burgers :)

We also had 2 members from Francis Lewis H.S.'s FRC team come join us.  Somehow they only had a couple of kids who wanted to continue FRC this year.  Most of the other students participate in the FTC program and the rest of the team from last year have graduated.  We're trying to help them keep their FRC program alive - or at least provide a place for those kids to participate.

We have 40 days left in our Kickstarter project and currently have 24 backers pledging a total of $2050.  Still trying to spread the word because we don't get any of the funds until we reach the goal.

Finally, I got a wonderful surprise yesterday.  While busy taping the Inventory QR codes to bins in the bathroom a.k.a. our "storage" area, I was summoned back to the classroom.  When I walked in, I got a "Happy Birthday" and was presented with my "Woodie flowers", a small binder filled with touching notes from the kids and a cool robot silicone mold.  Now I can make them chocolate or Jello robots and No - No Jello shots!