Team Neutrino recently attended our first Sponsor Visit with Emerson, a global technology and engineering company. The near 50 Emerson employees in attendance gave us a warm welcome and engaged with us during our presentation and robot demonstration. We recieved lots of questions from the employees, and we loved sharing about the many different aspects of our team. In turn, Emerson gave our members a comprehensive and interactive tour, teaching us about what they do.
Thank you, Emerson, for sponsoring our team and supporting our mission!
Team Neutrino participated in the 4th of July Parade in downtown Ames on Main Street, displaying the robot while throwing out candy to attendees. In keeping with this year’s parade theme—“Stars, Stripes, and Summertime”—we decorated our robot and designed our cart with festive accessories. Our team members had a great time handing out candy to over a hundred spectators. This was a great way to raise awareness for Team Neutrino in our community, and we had a great time showcasing our robot, Leviathan! Thank you to all those who attended, and we are excited to attend next year’s parade as well!
During the week of June 24-27, 2025, Team Neutrino hosted the annual Graphics and Website Camp for new and returning members interested in joining the Graphics subteam. During the graphics part of the camp, students leaned the basics of designing posters and taking pictures. They learned about Team Neutrino’s identity standards, got trained on the cameras and gimbal! During the website portion of the camp, students learned the basics of HTML and creating posts for the website.
On June 9, 2025, Team Neutrino began their yearly Manufacturing Camp for incoming students to learn the basics of manufacturing. After learning how to use machines like the drill press, the band saw, and the hole-puncher, students concluded the camp by building their very own box out of sheet metal.
We look forward to seeing how these amazing students put their new skills to use!
From June 16-20 and 23-27, 2025, Team Neutrino the second annual youth summer camps for 4-5th and 6-8th graders to participate in a mock FIRST LEGO League (FLL) season. Through this camp, FLL Blastoff, we inspire kids to join the thriving FLL community in Ames and pursue STEM in the future. Members of Team Neutrino spent countless hours planning and preparing for FLL Blastoff, even through the intensive build and competition seasons. We also dedicated Outreach Camp to train camp leaders and volunteers, ensuring a well-executed camp where students learn how to build a LEGO Spike Prime robot and code it to complete missions.
This year, we chose the 2019 FLL game, CityShaper, challenging campers to complete various missions with their robot such as lowering a LEGO crane and moving LEGO buildings. The campers loved the bridge mission, which created a unique opportunity to interact with the team at the table across from them. Their robots could collide, and even fall off the bridge! This led to an effort to create the best mechanism to push robots off, or protect their robot from attack! On the final day, we ran 3-5 actual matches, giving the campers an opportunity to see their hard work in action during a mock FLL competition.
