We watched the kickoff in awe and was shocked when it was done… 10:20am read the time! One thing I thought was pretty cool was when Woodie mentioned the Gracious Professionalism shown by our friends, #525 SwartDogs in Cedar Falls, last year at the Kansas City Regionals which you can read about here. I would like to set a challenge for all teams to help teams in need this year, just like SwartDogs did.
This year’s theme is Ultimate Ascent. It looks super interesting and kinda challenging. We noticed that this year’s challenge and last year’s challenge are very similar in a number of ways.
After kick-off, we worked on devising a successful strategy. After lunch, we came back and played beta tested the throwing of frisbees and how they fly. Our mentor, Aren, had the most successful attempts at throwing a frisbee “through” a “goal” (in our case, we used live Neutrinos as goal post markers). Once we got done with that, we talked and finalized our strategy and started talking about our goals for our robot this season.
Before you finish reading, we would like to thank our wonderful sponsors this year: Quality Manufacturing, our AMAZING fabricator and who has graciously picked up fabrication for Team #4646; Sauer Danfoss, one of our largest contributors this year; CIT Signature Transportation, who will transport us to and from two regionals this year; John Deere, who allowed us to go to a second regional this year and lends us one of their awesome engineers; Iowa State University Extension and Outreach – Story County 4-H, who graciously has given space for us to use along with liability insurance for everyone; Story County 4-H Foundation, who has given us a $1,000 grant; along with JCPenney and Chase Signs & Graphics.
Also a BIG shout out to the ISU College of Engineering and the ISU Robotics Club for granting us space on campus along with a nice shop to work in.
BTW, kudos to the team of guys working in Florida on their robot to have it all fabricated and ready to run on Monday! WOW! Check out their progress here.
Can’t wait to show off our robot when we get it complete in 6 weeks! GO TEAMS!
-David
