[Kit Gerhart]

After seven years with Team 45, TechnoKats, which is very well funded and since '98 has had a fantastic shop of its own, I'm now with rookie team 1062. We build in a class room where we have to put everything away every day. We have few hand tools and no power tools or machine shop. We bring our own electric drills, soldering iron, etc.

Still, things are going pretty well. It has been great for us that there was the "bolt together" drive train in the kit. While two wheel drive with castors is far from the ultimate drive setup, we were able to get something driving very quickly, a good thing when you don't have any "last year's" robots to practice with.

Now, we need to get further along with some autonomous programming and and "top half" ideas for our machine, but will be ready to roll at the Central Florida regional.

The people here have been great to work with, and the experience has been good as well. Next year, we'll be in a new school and will hopefully have a space of our own and a place to build at least part of a playing field.