[Conor Ryan]

So I'm on my 7th team in 13 years. I have a new job and I got my company to sponsor a team. We ended up working with a team that previously operated January-April only and now we are doing things differently.

So whats different. We have a team that previously operated from January to April, not much structure a lot of chaos, but they still got a robot built at a high level. We've been meeting as a full team every Tuesday and we have other student run meetings going on daily. Additionally we've grown from 20 students/2 teachers to 35 students/2 teachers/2 parents/7 mentors.

1) We are building a full blown off season robot now (that will be easy to use for demos/fundraising). Deadline for this to be completed is 11/30.

2) We are establishing a Booster Club/501(c)3 so we can fundraise money and grow parent involvement.

3) We are addressing the team's chronic issue of programming. They've struggled with it in the past and now we have a structured programming curriculum. Its not solved entirely, but expect us to be auto targeting come December.

It may seem trivial, but we are very much moving right now like it is build season. We are managing to difficult deadlines but everyone is onboard and making it happen. Expectations for the build season are raising, but we know we have a ton of work ahead of us to make it happen.