Build Team UpdateBy Loralei Rohrbach With the 2021 robotics season in full swing, the build team is currently prototyping the three mechanisms they’re working on this year. They’ve disassembled most of last year’s robot and are working out the details for each mechanism. With ample time in person, they team has been able to put the ideas they came up with online to the test and started finalizing details before manufacturing real pieces! At the beginning of the season, the team choose not to participate in any of the competitions offered by FIRST this year because they didn’t match with our focus on exploration or our time restrictions due to COVID-19. The team is, however, still looking to possibly scrimmage against other teams towards the end of the season. In previous seasons, time spent in the lab is less structured, and multiple students can work on the same mechanism at once. With COVID-19 restrictions, lab hours require very careful and thorough planning to ensure group sizes aren't too large and social distancing is practiced. Additionally, two of the most important parts of the team are team bonding and building friendships across grade levels. It has been challenging to replicate the same positive team energy online and from a distance, but our student leadership team works hard to create fun opportunities for team members to get to know each other outside of lab hours. Over the past few weeks, the team has started hosting in-person lab hours, and the build specialists have worked hard to create an outdoor lab space to work in. Although lab safety was discussed at the start of the year, being in-person makes it a lot easier to teach new members about power tools and lab safety. One highlight is that the vast majority of the build team is attending in-person lab hours, allowing students begin physically building our robot. Being in-person has also ensured that more students can attend lab hours for longer periods of time and allocates productive work time. In terms of details around our outdoor lab space, students from different grade levels are able to come to campus, remaining 10 feet apart throughout group meetings. Our lab has been transformed into a collection of tools, tables, and shelves all on wheels that team members roll out into the Sunken patio at the start of each meeting. Most recently, Gatorbotics has started to open up more options for in-person lab hours and developed a successful hybrid model. Finally, the team is currently on track to have a completed robot by the end of the season and is super excited to see where the rest of the season takes us! Hybrid Learning and Programming Update Loralei Rohrbach Gatobotics has successfully adjusted to hybrid learning, and despite not having an official competition season this year, the team continues to work to make the season as fun, productive, and educational as possible. Throughout the second half of the 2020 season, as well as the beginning of this season, the leads worked tirelessly to adapt the in-person tech so members can see, hear, and participate from their homes and still feel like they’re getting a genuine lab experience. As of recently, the build and programming teams have started conducting in-person lab hours during the week and on weekends, allowing students to collaborate in person and work in the lab on more hands-on activities. On the programming team, new members have been working on sprints, where they have collaborated in small groups of two to three to write working code for the robot. The intention of the sprints is to introduce the different mechanisms of the robot and is also practice for the newer members as they learn how to use programming software. During in-person programming lab hours, the programming team is looking forward to testing out their codes on a real drive train! Team Member Feature: Alexis Eskenazi Loralei Rohrbach with Alexis Eskenazi
Alexis Eskenazi is a current sophomore and is Gatorbotics’ Co-Community Outreach Liaison. She was also recently named this season’s Entrepreneurship leader-in-training. Alexis started doing Casti robotics in sixth and seventh grade, and when the middle school team disbanded, she and her friends formed a robotics team un-affiliated with Castilleja during her 8th grade year. Now in her second season on team 1700, Alexis is a member of the programming, entrepreneurship, and build sub-teams. Her favorite robotics memory is of being down in the lab working with the rest of the team. She also misses daily team dinners, and loves the robotics community, from building relationships with new members to socializing with upperclassmen. As one of our team’s community outreach liaisons, Alexis has helped develop an introductory robotics class for 3rd-5th grade students interested in STEM. Alexis worked tirelessly to gather lots of sign-ups, and to spread the word about the opportunity to our broader community. Alexis explained that “online learning has helped us reach more kids than we would have been able to reach through an in-person model. Nearly 50 kids have signed up for just the second semester of our course. That wouldn’t have been possible during a normal year, since our lab would’ve never been able to hold that many kids. COVID-19 has opened more possibilities for our team to reach students outside of the Palo Alto area as well.” Outside of her role as community outreach liaison, as our team’s entrepreneurship team leader-in-training, Alexis is taking an increasingly active role in newsletter coordination, managing social media deadlines, leading meetings, writing grants, and applying to sponsorships. Robotics has certainly been an influential part of Alexis’ life. Through her work as our team’s community outreach liaison, she has become a better teacher and communicator, which are skills that certainly will help her later in life. The interpersonal abilities Gatorbotics instills are just as valuable, or are more valuable, than the technical skills the team builds.
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