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Unread 22-05-2012, 21:46
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CalTran CalTran is offline
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Re: getting 8th graders interested in FIRST

Quote:
Originally Posted by gracie. View Post
We also have a box of logomotion minibots we saved from the trash....

tl;dr version: We have 40 minutes and limited materials to get eighth grader girls hooked on FIRST. Ideas?
Are they all different minibot designs? You could split them up into appropriately sized groups, set the minibots out, let the groups choose their minibot, and, taking a leaf out of the IRI booklet, do human minibot races. (Though this does hinge on having 2 minibot poles.)
(I have never said minibot so many times in one paragraph.)

Go through the skeletons you've got, and see which one you could make most interesting if you brought it back to life. Assuming they're from the past 5 years, then I guess it'd go something like this:
2012: A nerf basketball shooting robot? Really, must I go on?
2009: Everyone hated the actual game, but you gotta admit the robot, if it shot, and shot fast, would make a pretty darned cool demobot.
2010: Depending on space, a soccer playing robot usually gets a few looks mainly because kids can relate to it. If you can, you could have the kids play goalie, and run the soccer bot around taking some (safely distant) shots.
2008: I'm not familiar with what your team did in 2008, but if you still have the hybrid and IFI controls for it, pretty much becomes a big rc car.
2007 & 2011: Good challenge for FRC kids, but particularly difficult for demos. I never came up with a pitch that made "Our $1500 Logomotion robot lifts inner tubes up 8-9 feet. It's intense." sound interesting.

Hope those two points help a little. Good luck!
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