Tiny Leprechauns, Great Potential
Y. Yun
Date: 1/19/14
Time: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Members present: Y. Yun, S. Seo, N. Yeap, C. Zhang
Stella, Nelson, and Claire were already in San Francisco for a prior event, and I was in charge of collecting key parts of the field for the presentation. I arrived at Nelson’s house at 12:30 AM to pick up items that we would need: the ramp, a pendulum, the hanging bar, and the flag crank. It took an hour to drive to San Francisco and find the house where we would be presenting. We quickly assembled the centerpiece of the field, set up our poster boards, and began to present to the Tiny Leprechauns, an FLL team.
We began with an overview of FTC and its differences with FLL, and encouraged them to consider creating or joining an FTC team after they grew older. We shared our experiences of working as a team in order to overcome obstacles, and also our method of brainstorming and distributing tasks that needed to be accomplished. Afterwards, we explained this year’s game to them, and introduced our robot, demonstrating its capabilities of quick movement, block pickup, cranking the flag, and hanging. The Tiny Leprechauns were eager to drive our robot, and while Nelson was teaching them how to drive and overseeing them, we talked to the parents about how they could join FTC. After we wrapped up our presentation and cleaned up our materials, the Tiny Leprechauns showed us their accomplishments as an FLL team.
Through this event, we got to talk to kids and their parents about the FTC competition and our own adventures as a robotics team. We were also successful in encouraging them to consider FTC as another option, as both parents and children seemed very interested in the idea. We're excited to see how the Tiny Leprechauns progress in the future!