Outline:
Having gained so much knowledge, experience, and so many memories ever since our rookie year in 1998, it was our greatest ambition to give others the opportunities that we had. Last year we assisted team #610 with their rookie year, and that experience served to further motivate us to organize a regional FIRST event in Canada.
Starting at the end of the 2001 robotics season, our team did presentations and robot demos all over the Greater Toronto Area, building a local team basis and attacting corporate sponsors - requirements for the creation of a new regional. We also held several seminars for control system design, and general info.
Meanwhile, we continued our annual robot demos at various sponsor events and local elementary schools, with the objective of sparking an interest in engineering in young kids. We also held various fundraisers, raising not only money for our team, but awareness of our team's involvement in FIRST, within the community. A local band wrote a theme song for our team, entitled "Blizzard".
As well, we formed strong partnerships with local universities, through the numerous Team 188 alumni enrolled in engineering and science programs (in the universities).
Come January 2002, our team set up a remote kickoff in Toronto for all the Canadian Regional participants. We also designed and published the
Canadian Regional website, for teams' future reference, and discussion about various robotics-related issues.
Throughout the 6-week building period, we assisted many of the 23 new Canadian teams, both through the Canadian Regional website, and in person; lending spare parts, distributing sponsor-provided parts, etc.
In regards to our own robot - students, mentors, and engineers worked together to plan a building "calendar", in which brainstorming, prototyping, building, and practising were alotted a specific number of days/weeks. We strove to stick to the plan we had set for ourselves, and instead ended up finishing a week ahead
You can download our Chairman's Award Video at
our website.
Thanks & good luck! And for those who don't already know, you can find us at nats by looking for the red & white-Maple leaf uniform