Saturday was a productive day! Students in the previous week had been working hard on the mechanisms that collect and score gears. The Static Collector is the stationary collector that receives gears from the loading station. The Ground collector is able to pick gears up from any part of the field in order to score. Both of these collectors were demonstrated on Saturday for all to see.
Students also took a scouting test. Our team has an advanced scouting system to ensure that we have good information on other teams. The information and rankings that FIRST post aren’t always accurate due to the fact that teams are put on alliances which can carry them up or down the seed. Each year, we create an app designed by scouting personnel, specialized for the new game of every year. In order to assure scouting personnel that our information is correct and coherent, we teach and test on the app and the game.
We received one of the bases we will be using this season and students riveted it. Two students went to a mentor, Paul Dannebrock’s, house and worked on it with him. We have a time lapse of our base being riveted on the website under our media folder. Students put together wheel assemblies in order to get the base driving as quickly as possible. We hope to get a base to the programming team soon.
The PR team continued to work on team spirit and awards. For the Woodie Flower’s Award, a student who is close to the mentor collaborated with PR to get the materials together for the award. That student then wrote the essay and submitted it in STIMs. PR team continued to work on the Chairman’s Essay. Other students, teachers, and mentors then read it to help ensure that the essay flows. We will send our final copy to a teacher for final revisions in the coming week.
We also worked on team spirit for competitions! We created signs with our team number to excite our team, our alliance, and the crowd. We also made goodie bags for other teams, wishing them good luck and giving them a little piece of our team.
While students were working, we had visitors. The head of technology for Lockport City School District came and observed students working. The head of tech viewed the work ethic of students in all sub teams. Our visitors even had the opportunity to drive our base from last year.