Team 293 SPIKE
Build Season Newsletter
February 2020 Edition #2
| Introduction |
Dear Sponsors and Parents,
First and foremost, the team is grateful for your generous sponsorships and support for SPIKE Team 293! There are a couple of updates that we would like to share with you.
| Build Season Continues |
We have split the team into six distinctive groups responsible for different aspects of the team this build season. The groups are as follows: entrepreneurship, programming, and four different areas of robot building, composed of the drivetrain, the ball shooter, the ball loader, and the ball feeder. Significant improvements have been made on the design of the robot after experimenting with prototypes. The fabrication team has been working on improving the drive train and shooter. We’ve created a cardboard template to simulate the field so we can practice shooting balls from various angles (see videos below). The coding team has also made massive strides. They are currently making the drive train run more smoothly than it did last year. The progress they’ve made is a testament to how effective having a coding mentor and a dedicated team of around 5-6 students actively working is to code development. We plan to have a finished robot by February 29th, 2020, and of course, all of the workshop time will be used to meet this goal.
| Strategy and Entrepreneurship |
This month, the entrepreneurship team submitted the first part of our Chairman’s Award application, which includes an essay describing all the aspects of the team. This essay, known as the executive summary, focuses mainly on team culture and impact in the community. The team is also working on other aspects of the application, which include a video submission. The team is going to use the help of the school’s Production Studio for this task. Additionally, the entrepreneurship team has also begun budgeting the expenses for our trips and planning specific travel logistics. These details include bus routes and hotels for the regional and world competition. This is all in accordance with our goal this year to not have parents pay for any travel expenses. Finally, the development team has been hard at work fostering sponsor relationships as well as finding new companies to sponsor us. Four of our students recently had a wonderful experience making a presentation about our team to Daiichi Sankyo employees and officers. The team is seeking to give more students similar opportunities in the future.
| Community Events |
On Saturday, February 22, 2020, there will be a science fair at Stony Brook Elementary School that the team will be attending. This is one of 5 science fairs in the school district, the others being Hopewell Elementary, Bear Tavern Elementary, Toll Gate Grammar, and Timberlane Middle School. Attending these science fairs allows us to educate up and coming engineers and entrepreneurs about the FIRST organization and encourage them to join one of the many FRC leagues. This is only one of the many community events that we participate in and we will keep you updated on any other upcoming community events.
Thank you and please stay tuned for more.
Sincerely,
Brian Chin
Chief Development Officer
| Photos and Videos |
