Outreach

AABEA Outreach

Outline:

One of our first outreach events of the season was the AABEA Convention at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. AABEA (American Association of Bangladeshi Engineers and Architects) holds a biennial convention every year where they always have a Science Fair, Trivia, and Math competition in the morning and lunch hours. This year, it was held at the Gaylord Convention Center in National Harbor in the Riverside Ballroom. The Science fair hosts kids of all ages from Kindergarden-12th. Along with this, they always have many educational institutions and vendors setup, so our team got our own little area right outside the Science fair room to set up our display.

Our Setup:

At the convention we had a tri-fold with information about our team, the PowerPlay game, FTC, our contact information, and our strategy for the game. We also had one of our robots from last year to display. Our other robot, Karen, was also at the convention. We had about 8 members there, along with 3 coaches/parents. We setup as the kids were still finishing up the science fair, and we gathered most of our crowd when they broke for lunch and other activities.

Drawing Competition:

We took a modified skeleton chassis that we used for last year’s competition and attached a pen to a servo by making a 3dp chicken shaped pen holder. This was then used to move a pen up on the floor so that you could draw on the floor with the robot. With this, we were able to let the kids that were there for the science fair and science activities to draw on the flip chart we had on the floor. We got many many kids to draw on the papers, and at the end we treated them to some candy. The results of the drawings can be found in the pictures. When we were debriefing, we decided to rename the robot to match what we did at the outreach event, like naming the robot Bob Ross, or Picasso.

Inspiring:

We were talking to people of all ages about FTC and FIRST Robotics. We were able to answer many questions about our robot and talk to many engineers and architects. One of the people we spoke to was a man who works at a patent office. We told him all about our robot and our innovative capstone from last year ’s competition. We told him about our 3D printed parts like our herringbone gears and our claws that could pick up Freight. He suggested that we could patent part of our shipping element. He was also a FRC alumni so it was super interesting to hear about his experiences!! A lot of people also were interested in joining FTC and doing more things in STEM/STEAM. As well as him, we talked to many parents who were interested in having their kids join FTC, or maybe robotics in general. We pointed them places like the FTC website, or nearby teams, or even lower FIRST competitions like FLL and Discovery since many of the kids were younger. Additionally, one of our members, Ayaan Shaikh, presented in the Youth Forum. There, to a group of parents, engineers, and students, about our previous year’s robot parts, software, code, engineering process, etc. He talked about the real world applications of robotics, and emphasized how Freight Frenzy mimicked a real world scenario of delivering freight. Lastly, we left off with the essence of FTC, and the core value of Gracious Professionalism, and different skills students learn in FTC, like how its not only hard skills but many soft skills like communication and meeting deadlines.

Donations:

We were able to raise $53 in donations by asking for donations in our donations box.