First time for the STEAM Expo!

On Thursday March 26th, Mechatronics went to the STEAM Expo for the first time, this expo is STEM plus arts. This is a new event at our new high school this year, displaying booths for STEM careers and art in the commons and gyms of the school. We were invited to attend this event and demonstrate Guido to the community, also representing the team and spreading the message of FIRST to those who haven't heard of FIRST robotics before.

This was a large event with lots of the adults and children coming to see the interactive booths and demonstrations. Mechatronics, RC cars from physics and manufacturing and 5th graders showing their Lego robots were all incorporating STEM ideas and sharing it with the community in one of the gyms.

Throughout the event a lot of community members stopped to look at our robot and ask questions about the team. This event also helped us recruit some new sponsors and team member for next year!
The children at the event had fun watching Guido stack totes, drive around the gym and sometimes controlled the stacking of totes themselves. We only came across a couple of problems during the event, but we were able to keep going till the end of the event.

Hopefully we will come back again next year and show off our new 2016 robot and spread the word of FIRST to the community!

Guido Visited Empty Bowls!

On Tuesday March 24th, the team headed over to the high school to show Guido to the community for the first time! The robot has been sitting in the bag at the shop over at the middle school since the end of build season and finally was let loose!







But first before Guido could stack some totes, some assembly was required. He is a bit taller this year than our robot Thor from last year, because of this we had to move some parts around for it to fit in the bag. Once he was all set up and we had communications, we drove around and showed Guido to the community.

During the Empty Bowls event the kids were chasing Guido around,
controlling the robot with Bryce and giving Guido hugs. Guido doesn't
just stack totes like any normal robot, he also gives hugs! 

Not only did Guido show off his stacking talents but also helped the community recycle!

That doesn't look like the normal game piece, right?