We are organizing a day for parents to come in and see what we do as a club. I was planning on having two running robots as well as showing drawings of some parts made on Inventor. Has anyone done something like this or have any ideas of what else we could do?
Shop tour is key. And FOOD!!! Feed them well and many more parents will attend (and pay attention.) Our parent contributions doubled when we added a BBQ a couple of years ago.
^This^
We hold several parent and community events during the year.
In fact, parent night is a community gathering so get the word out to all of the community, the more the merrier!
We have one at the end of each quarter.
The students exhibit the projects they have finished for that grading period.
There will be robot demos from various platforms. Vex - FRC - ROV and more.
Shop tours are critical, maybe a parent might want to play… Have the students do some demos.
The last few years we have been incorporating “escape rooms” as one of the projects. Super popular!
Students design the rooms then work on the sets as well as 3d print or hand fabricate the locks and various clues, etc…
We have Lego walls for the visitors to create as well as mini builds for prizes.
Then we have two big community events…
HIRES - Hawaii Island Robotics Exposition & Showcase
This is our JFLL, FLL tournament and additional STEM outreach and showcase
Ho’ike - Exhibition
Our end of year celebration with our community and team awards.
There are so many ways you can get the parent community as well as sponsors to come and see…
Have projects/Lego/painting for the youngsters, help the visitors have time to see everything.
We love to do BBQ’s as well… We have even done a few Imu. (kalua pork)
Maybe even tie that into a robotics fundraiser…
Let us know how it goes.
Aloha!
We’ve had fun with “parents drive” at similar events - gives them a chance to try things out, we’ve done an obstacle course format. Kids vs. parents if we have two working robots available. We also invited local media (very small town) so that was good for some social media exposure.
We’ve done cookouts or ice cream socials on our parents’ nights. I think the ice cream social is a bit less formal, gives folks an option for quick in and out if they aren’t inclined to stay too long.
At the end of the summer we had kids formally present the summer drive train project. That was a good chance to show our incoming rookie parents what the kids had been and would be working on.
Be sure to contact some local eateries for donation toward this end.
We’ve found Buffalo Wild Wings and Hooters to be generous in the past.
Thank you all for the ideas. I am going to talk to our mentor to see if we can get some food and hopefully have all of our robots running.