Our team ran an interactive booth at the Dutchess County Fair (DCF), showcasing FIRST and robotics to over 100,00 attendees throughout the week. Following the success of the previous year, we decided to maintain a high level of interaction as a part of our display. We set up our pit to show last season’s robot and demonstrated its use, additionally we had a 3D printer in action showing the intricacies of CAD, and a monitor setup sharing highlights from last season’s competitions. We had members of our team ready at all times to help answer questions about our team and FIRST. We collaborated with Jaybots, hosting them for a day at the fair to show our teams’ skills and the importance of working together and sharing opportunities in robotics.

Over our week at the fair in summer of 2024 we realized how much kids and adults loved getting to test drive robots themselves. In response to this we designed and coded two identical robots for fairgoers to control and compete with by push blocks and balls into designated areas on a homemade field. Similarly, when Jaybots joined us for the day, we did a scrimmage demonstration to show the excitement of a real match scenario. This also displayed our robots’ ability to perform it’s designated actions and allowed attendees to see them in action.

Our team reached out to alumni members at the start of the season to help us determine a game plan and discuss different strategies for what type of robot to build. We showed them some sketches of ideas we came up with so they could give feedback on how to improve what we had. They helped us by providing us with their extensive experience of FTC games.

We met remotely with engineers from Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, MI to discuss wire management, a problem that we have come across in previous years. 

What we learned:

• Consistently use heat shrinking

• Minimize slack

• Static prevention