During the past week, we’ve been busy building and painting our two FLL tables. They will used in our Robotics STEM camp that is coming up this following week (Oct . 6-10) and reused for the Central District FIRST LEGO League Regional that will be held at our high school on November 8 at Mililani High School. Come join us then!
Orion paints the table edges. Space is limited, so we improvise.
Tables have been built!
Today we went to Punahou School to watch the FTC kickoff. The game revealed for this build season was Cascade Effect. Our team also had a presentation where we shared lessons that we learned during our rookie year, which was last year. We focused on two parts of FTC: the Engineering Notebook and the robot design process.
Other FTC teams were able to take a look at our Engineering Notebook to get ideas for formatting and organization.
We are super excited for this game, and can’t wait for the FTC Hawaii Championship, which will take place on December 13, 2014 at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall. A shoutout to Mr. Aaron Dengler for coordinating this kickoff and Punahou for hosting it!
For more information on Cascade Effect, you can go to our webpage here . FTC Hawaii’s website can be found here .
On Thursday, August 28 we spread awareness of our program at our school’s annual club fair. We handed out informational flyers and recruited prospective members as we demonstrated our 2014 FRC robot on stage and showcased our 2013 “Sack a Rice” FTC robot.
Starting on July 15, we held the 2014 Igniting Inspiration Summer STEM Camp for approximately thirty upcoming 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. The event ran for 5 days from 8:00 to 12:30, and students chose to participate in either a robotics or alternative energy STEM camp.
The robotics camp offered students an introduction to programming as well as robot design using Lego FLL NXT Mind-storm kits to accomplish the objectives in the Food Factor Mission. Food Factor was the 2011 competition for the First Lego League, a robotics competition which is open to elementary and middle school students.
A group of students in the robotics camp test their robot design through one of the food factor missions.
In addition to the robotics camp, we offered an introductory course on Alternative Energy. These students learned about the various forms of energy, and learned about how we are able to harness various energy sources so that we have power to use in our homes. They learned basic circuitry as they incorporated LEDs into model homes they constructed out of foam, and used solar cells and mini wind turbines as an alternative source of energy.
A student in the alternative energy camp tests the LED on a rocker switch using a 3 volt battery pack.
Click here for more information on this Igniting Inspiration camp. .
Today, we went down to the Mililani Public Library to help out with the Summer Reading Program (SRP) kickoff from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The theme was “Touch a Truck,” where kids could explore trucks parked outside of the library and get a treat for registering. There was also a STEM booth inside, where children could get free printouts of science activities that demonstrated various concepts, ranging from capillary action to forces like friction and drag.
Charlie had fun demonstrating the Mini-Copter to children.
To learn more about the Summer Reading Program, go here .
Today we volunteered at the Institute for Human Services’ homeless shelter. We helped prepare 15 vertical gardens, each consisting of thirty plants each. We definitely had fun transferring plants and mulching them, it was quite earthy!
We also got to take a tour of their facility and visit their rooftop garden which also had an aquaponics section, maintained by residents who take their urban agriculture class.
IHS is an emergency shelter geared towards alleviating homelessness in Hawaii. They serve over 4,000 individuals per year, most of them being families and single parents.
On April 25, our team headed over to our local library to showcase our FRC and FTC robots as a part of the library’s annual STEM event. Children were able to drive our 2013 FTC robot around on a mini-field, and we brought a Sphero that younger kids could interact with through the use of an iPod. We also were able to talk to parents about philosophy behind FIRST and our upcoming summer STEM camp. We hope to do this again in the future; we all had a good time!
