Team 19542 The CIA reached out to us and asked if we could set a meeting with them to give advice because last season was their rookie season in FTC. So on February 20th, we set up a zoom call. We discussed all areas of FTC from outreach to coding and were able to help them with some of our tricks we have learned over the seasons. We did this event over zoom just so we had more options on time. We also talked to them about what they did during their first season and how it went. We can’t wait to see them at our next competition!

 

We have done the Tech Fest event with the Works Museum in the past and we love to do this event! This year we were invited by one of our contacts at the Works, Emily Kinny. So on April 23rd, we were able to bring our robot to both drives and demo  and also brought some Spheros for kids to drive. We brought some game elements so the kids could practice driving our robot from last season and see what it would be like to drive in a competition. For the Sphero we let the kids play with them however they saw fit. We did help some kids code on the Sphero app which is not something that we have tried before. We ended up impacting a lot of people and were able to meet with a few other robotics teams that were at the event.

 

 

 

On April 28th we had a station at a Native American STEM Night. Much like the Tech Fest event we had our robot to demo as well as Sphero for people to drive around. We also gave an introduction about our team and FIRST to each group that came through. A lot of the kids were very excited about robotics and expressed interest in wanting to do robotics in school.

 

 

 

On May 12th we attended the Westview Carnival which is this school's end of the year celebration. We brought our robot from last season and set up a maze with markers for students to drive through. We had a lot of people stop by and would love to attend this event again.

 

 

 

We had been wanting to set up this event with Southview for a while. Originally this was meant to be the same presentation with just the Gifted and Talented class. However, after the 5th grade class watched the FIRST documentary we got invited on May 26th to present to the whole 5th grade class in the gym. We started with a presentation outlining what we did then had students ask us questions. We also were able to get some of the teachers to drive the robot which a lot of the kids loved.

 

 

On August 11th, we were chosen to attend the CONvergence demo with High Tech Kids. We had three other FTC teams with us there: Spontaneous Construction, Tactical Tech Tomato Turtles, and CyberHawks. There was a steady flow of people who came throughout the morning. We got a lot of people to drive the robot and a lot more adults than at our normal events which are mostly outreach to kids. It was a new experience and it was really cool. We also got to talk to the other FTC teams which was great like always.

 

 

On September 10th, 2022 we gave a 30 minute presentation at the 2022 season kickoff about CAD and design in our portfolio. We focused on our use of CAD for rapid prototyping and designing, as well as, the use of 3D printed parts for quick iterations. Our team also attended a “Creating Custom Parts: Thinking Outside the Kit ” presentation, presented by Tactile Tech Tomato Turtles. We learned about alternate materials, some of which we considered during our current prototyping stage.

 

 

One September 15th we were invited to an Uponor STEM fair. During the STEM fair we presented our previous season's robot, Dougie, and allowed participants to experience robotics while spreading our message. We participated in this event with Knights of The Valley, the Apple Valley FRC team and 

Cobalt Catalyst, an Eastview FRC team.

 

 

On October 6th we were invited to Cedar Park's STEM Night. This event was amazing. We have been to events at Cedar Park before COVID but this was the first time after. We thought we knew what to expect with the number of people attending. However there was a record number of people who came to the STEM Night. We were busy all night and had a lot of kids coming in and asking us questions about robotics and driving our robot as well as a robot that is in progress for the school. We had a lot of fun. There were also two FRC teams there as well, Colbert Cascade out of Eastview High School and Knights of the Valley from ours. We unfortunately did not have any time to talk to them but the event was a lot of fun.

 

 

 

With COVID, a lot of programs at Valley Middle School stop. One of them being their FTC teams. However there was still interest from kids to be a part of this program. So a new FTC team was formed at Valley Middle School this season. They met a few times during our meetings which allowed them to ask us questions about the game and portfolio. A few of the members also came to an outreach event to see how they are run.

 

 

 

On November 15th we were invited to speak at the American Heart Association STEM Goes Red for Women event. We applied for a grant that they were handing out two years ago so we already had a connection with them. They asked us to speak for 5 minutes about our experience with STEM as students. We also got to talk to some STEM professionals at the event. There was also another part of the event that one of our members attended which was the student part with a whole bunch of STEM professionals. Overall, we had a great time at this event and meeting everyone.

 

 

 

We got invited back to demo for Droid December this season on December 30th, 2022! It was a great experience, like it was last season, and we had a lot of fun showing our robot to a lot of kids. We had them drive our competition robot from this season and take the cones and place them on the chair. We always love to demo our robot and this is always a great opportunity to demo our robot.