TEAM 1403 COUGAR ROBOTICS
PROJECT/ACTIVITY: Introduction to Robotics
Date: 10/02/2019
Where: Montgomery High School
Number of Students: 65
Action Items: Cards, Tape, A presentation device
Impact on Team: For the challenge, the students were randomly placed into groups and were tasked to construct the tallest structure using a deck of cards and limited tape. The students worked together with people that they had possibly never met before, establishing new relationships. Throughout the challenge, students realized that they were falling short of necessary materials. In order to fix this, the mentors began to walk around and offer students extra materials if they were able to answer questions about the presentation.
The first cougar class of the year began with a presentation by all the mentors, where they introduced themselves. This was important because the students learned which mentors can help them in the exploration of their future careers. The mentors included details regarding where they attended college, their job application process, and their current day to day responsibilities at work. The mentors also explained the reason why they became mentors, and how they were going to help the students throughout the season
This challenge taught the team several things, including the importance of teamwork. In order to make a tall and effective structure out of something as weak as cards we first needed to bounce ideas off of one another. Ideas like how much cards we should use or what the structure should look like. Constructing the tower itself also emphasized teamwork as different people needed to play different roles during the building of the structure. Some people were building the tower while others continued to create ideas on how to further improve the structure. In addition, the challenge allowed the students to get to know the mentors. Although the mentors introduced themselves in the beginning, the students actually had the opportunity to communicate with them and build a relationship as the challenge progressed.
Teamwork and building relationships with our mentors is a great thing to learn in the beginning as the other things we will be doing in robotics depend on these skills. great thing to learn in the beginning as the other things we will be doing in robotics depend on these skills.