[GreyingJay]

We spent some of our early meetings showing videos of FIRST to show the new students what they're getting into and then brainstorming and voting on team goals, meeting nights, team name, team colors, team logo. We spent a lot of time on this, which ate into the rest of the stuff we could be doing, but we wanted everyone to feel like they had a real say in how the team was going to work.

Most of our meetings took the form of a 30-minute presentation on the "topic of the night" followed by other stuff in the rest of the meeting. Topics have included:
- branding (when we were defining our logo and colors)
- fundraising 101
- personal safety and YPP
- physical safety around tools and equipment
- FIRST awards
- definition of our subteams (electrical and controls, software, design, fabrication, business)
- project management 101

We've also had a few all-meeting activities done and scheduled, including:
- Mechanical Design Challenge (weight bearing beam challenge using cardboard and duct tape)
- "Electrical and Controls 101" and "Shop Tools 101" - two breakout sessions that students swapped after 30 minutes - familiarization with the RoboRio control system, how to strip wires, what is a wrench and ratchet, etc.
- team building activities (marshmallow challenge)
- planning for fundraising - making posters etc.
- competition 101 - what a regional looks like, show videos, what the subteams will be, how to apply, selection criteria
- kickoff simulation

Our subteams are currently working on a few small off-season projects:
- Design team has been getting SolidWorks installed on student laptops.
- Fabrication team borrowed another team's KoP chassis and took it apart one meeting, put it back together the next meeting.
- Electrical and controls team laid out the RoboRio parts on a sheet of plywood, wired it up, and interfaced the robot code and Driver Station to control motors and lights and toggle switches
- One software team is working on an Android scouting app for the team to use
- One software team is looking at robot vision using GRIP
- One software team is looking at making Arduino based robots move for now, and when we have a drivable robot, will look at autonomous motion (unfortunately the other team needed their KoP chassis back, otherwise this team would be using that)
- Fabrication team put together an AndyMark "Cheap and Dirty RCU". Once done, my hope is that they will work with the electrical and controls team to tie the motor control into the RoboRio instead of radio control, and once THAT's done, the autonomous software team will have something to play with.
- Business team has been planning fundraisers, designing shirts and hoodies, setting up our website, building our social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr.