“Each Thanksgiving morning, as part of the ribbon cutting ceremony, a special group is invited
to join Amy Kule to lead the Parade down the streets of Manhattan. Often these groups
feature exceptional individuals who are making a contribution to the city or nation. This year,
students from FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), along with
specially created robots designed by the selected students will help kick-off the march. FIRST
is a nationwide organization the aims to inspire young people to be science and technology
leaders by building skills through a mentor-based program.”
One quick question, though:
Does “specially created robots” imply that they have new robots made just for this event, or are they using their competition robots? My guess is that it’s just referring to FRC robots in a way that makes more sense to the general public, but the wording made me think that they are “specially created” for this event.
It appears that the robots will simply be cutting the ribbon, rather than actually leading the parade. I may be wrong, though, since I have yet to actually see the beginning of the parade. Darned build season, making me have to stock up on sleep a month in advance.
They will be driving the entire parade route. Not sure if ribbon is cut and they take off or they fall into the parade somewhere else. So “leading” may not be entirely accurate, but at least “starting.”
Actually the release says lead: “…a special group is invited to join Amy Kule to** lead the Parade** down the streets of Manhattan.”
If robots are really going to be driving the route, I’d suggest modifying the robot to use a 40 Ah car battery instead of a standard FIRST 17 Ah battery. That’s a long route and changing batteries every 10 minutes would really slow things down.
