Working on Community Support
Since August 2016, our team has been involved in five community outreach events and has interacted with over 2,100 local students. It's a lot of fun to share what we do. This morning we were invited to the Hammond/Ponchatoula Sunrisers Rotary Club to share our experiences in FIRST. We had the chance to present our project, Guardian Angel, and talk about what it's like to be on a FIRST Lego League team.
Right now we are working to raise money to compete at Worlds. Our main fundraiser is our Family Lego Night that we host at the Louisiana Children's Discovery Center. Last year we were able to raise almost $4,000 at this event! At today's meeting we spent time talking about possible ideas for FLN. Some of the challenges will include our Duplo Bridge Debacle, Battle Bots, a timed mimic build, Lego racer, longest bridge and some Lego-inspired Minute-to-Win-It activities. We will also have demos from a cookie icing bot, EV3 Rubik's Cube solver and artist bot. Members of Hammond High's FRC team Torbotics #2080 will also be on hand to help us run the event. After brainstorming ideas for FLN, we walked around downtown Hammond to hang up flyers for the event. It was a lot of fun! Each of us had a turn to hang up flyers. We even saw the Mystery Machine and took a picture with it because we thought it was really cool to see it in real life. As we walked around, we looked for more places to hang up our flyers. We had the chance to talk to business owners about FLL and what we do on the Bayou Builders. At one business (Cupcake Concept), we found out that they will be closing later this month for good. Our coaches went back later to buy us some cupcakes to show our support for always being so nice to us.
What is it like to be a part of the Bayou Builders?
Matthew (12):
Being a part of the Bayou Builders is amazing! Each time we meet, I learn something new. I have learned a lot about micro controllers and electronics with building Guardian Angel. We built our own prototype around the micro controller Arduino. We used a pH prob made for use with the Arduino. We used two peristaltic pumps to move our pH adjustment solution. Then, with the help of our mentors from Hammond High's FRC Torbotics team #2080, we programmed the Arduino to dispense the necessary adjustment solution based on the reading from the probe.
Preston (9):
The Bayou Builders is a great experience for me. This is my first year, so I am happy that I'm on the team. Our team is blessed to go to Worlds in Houston, Texas. We have had many visitors during the meetings and it has been great. Sometimes we go on trips to great places like the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans or when we presented at the Girl Scouts BIG Event, the Hammond Library and Greenville Park Leadership Academy. Since I've been on the Bayou Builders I have learned how to program the micro controller Arduino and learned how to create a line follower.
