By Ava Rubin, Team Captain & Christopher Olivier, Team President
The night before the official kickoff, we held a team meeting in order to introduce everyone to each other. We also determined meeting times for the build season based on the schedules of each team member. Of course, we had to cover some ground rules and expectations for the team and season.
On the actual day of kickoff, we organized for our team as well as a team we helped start, to meet at a local business that gave us access to a large projector, great sound system and plenty of space for us to gather. We streamed the reveal video for all to watch and then logged into the game manual. Huge thanks to Bret, owner of Billco’s in downtown Napa for hosting our us and the team we are mentoring, Eco Robotics so early in the morning! Big shout out to our parent community for the breakfast goodies.
After watching the reveal video; we met back at our workspace and went over the rules, and what exactly the game entailed. We spent the rest of the day working with the rookie team we are mentoring. Since it is their first year, we assisted in the assembly of their Kit Of Parts chassis.
In the following meetings, we discussed the components of the game that we planned on playing. Once we came to a consensus, we started a discussion of the different implements and worked on the beginning stages of prototyping the robot.
In addition to building our 2020 competition’s robot, we have continued our outreach efforts. We participated in the Napa Library How-To Festival and demonstrated our 2019 season’s robot along with a practice robot chassis we built. All in all, we are weeks ahead in comparison to our rookie year. We continue to work as a student-led team and student-built robot as we move into our second week of robot design and build.