On May 11, members and mentors of the RoboRavens brought our Power Up Robot to Berrigan Elementary School for Berrigan’s Annual Garage Sale, where we set up a demonstration. Our goals for this event were to spread awareness of FIRST, STEM, and robotics in general to spark interest in the younger students. We set up ran tests to make sure we were prepared for the event.
At 7 am on Saturday, May 12, we began to demonstrate our robot. Our demonstration involved driving the robot around, picking up a cube using our claw and placing it on a table, which acted as our switch. We gave the younger kids a chance to interact with the robot by letting them give it one of the power cubes. We also answered many questions from children and parents about the robot and about FIRST. Many were impressed that a group of students were able to complete the task of building a robot in a mere 6 week period, and they were interested in getting involved. Aside from introducing FRC and our team, we also spread the word about Berrigan’s FLL program to parents whose kids were interested in robotics, but not old enough for FRC.
In addition to our robot, we also had our Protocase on display showing off the electronics of the robot, and our VEX robots. We also set up a laptop with links to FIRST Inspires and videos of the Power Up animation, which we used to help explain this years FRC game to the audience.
A few issues came up throughout the day as we discovered some problems with our robots, some of which we were able to fix there, while others are being fixed, as well as some ideas for updates that will be made later on. This is the first of many outreach events that the RoboRavens will be taking part in during the off season and we hope to see you out at our future events!
We would like to give a special thanks to all the parent volunteers and organizers who made this event possible.