ROBOTS!

Its that time of year again! Robot season is upon us. I have had a lot of people ask what that means, so I'll try to explain it just a bit. Keith is the coach and Jakob and Corrine are members of a First Robotics Competition team.  We have a few things that are very unique about our team compared to most of the FRC teams. Most FRC teams are through schools, have kids in a very central location (due to school attendance), and FRC is either a class during school hours or an extra curricular activity and the students work on the robot at the school they attend. We are a 4-H team and a large portion of our team is either homeschooled or attend private/charter schools. Our team is also spread all over the valley. We do most of our building at The Leonardo Museum in down town SLC.  A lot of the other teams can have up to 100 members and the mentors are teachers that are paid to do the job. Our team has 14 team members and all of the mentors volunteer their time. (this is last years team)

Several of the teams get very large sponsors that give these teams money and do a lot of the work as far as the design and building is concerned. Because we are so small, we have very limited resources. If you feel like donating money, we wouldn't turn it down! Each competition costs $5,000 just to enter. We then have the cost of the robot (We have an old one you can buy for $15,000 if you want) Cost of travel for the entire team can add up.  I tell you this just because I have had a few people ask us about how the team works and what is involved. In January FRC announces what the challenge will be. The team then has 6 weeks to design and build a robot. At the end of 6 weeks we put the robot into a large bag and zip tie it. We can't open it until we are at a competition. This link will take you to the reveal video for this years challenge.
2016 Challenge reveal
This sums up how robot season is.

Here are pictures of Keith and Corrine waiting for the rest of the team to come and for the kick off to begin. Kick off is where they find out what the robot needs to do!

PrototypeX is very much a family team.  Parents are the mentors. Siblings work together. The family travels with the team and families are our only cheering section at the competitions. After the big reveal, Hayden immediately started working on a design and plan for the robot.

My school room has been turned into a robot storage center and my kitchen table has been turned into a robot design station.

Look at all of that engineering and planning! The planning went on until 1am! Keith asked all of the team members to come up with some design plans (do your math) and bring those ideas to the first meeting.

Corrine is still having fun even if this does involve lots of math and late nights!

Kate is willing to help. Her suggestion was to build "a big robot that can climb."

So why the stress? Why the late nights? I love what this team has done for my kids. Keith is a great mentor and is very good at helping the kids design a robot that can solve a problem. The other mentors are just amazing. They are such great examples to my kids. The other 12 kids on the team are such great kids. I love each one of them. They are so smart, polite, and work so hard.  They are such great friends to Jakob and Corrine.  Thank you PrototypeX!  The team will miss its sleep, and I will miss Keith and the two older kids for 6 weeks, but its worth it.