Gearing Up for More Sharing!

One of our goals each season is to participate in as many community events as possible. We have a blast doing these events...both in getting to interact with people from all over and in getting to share the experience with each other. So far this season, we have hosted three EV3 Summer Skills camps, helped at an FTC Launch Event and connected with several teams within our state and overseas. We have presented at the 2016 Girls Scouts BIG Stem Event, Hammond Library Free Book STEM Event and the Greenville Park Leadership Academy Family STEM event. We recently hosted our 3rd annual Family Lego Night at the Louisiana Children's Discovery Center with great attendance and guest feedback. We have been guest speakers for the Hammond/Ponchatoula Sunrisers Rotary Club and are looking forward to similar speaking engagements during the next two weeks with our local Kwanis Club and Hammond (afternoon) Rotary Club. We are also trying to arrange for a fun scrimmage get-together with the top four FLL teams from our State Championship to help us all prepare for our upcoming end of season competitions while also getting to know each other better. We also recently found out that we will be presenters at Louisiana's first Green School Youth Summit on March 24th. How cool is that??? A robotics team is being asked to provide a break out sessions for a bunch of 5th grade through high school students at an environmental conference! Did we mention that this also takes place at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans?!?!?!?!

Right now, we are gearing up for our participation in a huge "robot reveal" at Hammond High Magnet School on Saturday, February 25. We can't wait! We have actually been asked to showcase our Animal Allies robot, Shark Byte, along side FRC Torbotics #2080's STEAMWorks big bot reveal. Are you serious?! What an honor to have this opportunity! We are also hoping that we will also get to see the FTC bots for their three FTC teams that recently qualified to compete at the Louisiana Regional Championship on March 4th.

What does "coopertition" mean to us?

We know it sounds like a made up word, but it's not! It means a great deal in FLL. Along with "gracious professionalism," coopertition should always be at the foundation of every team...whether you are in JrFLL, FLL, FTC or FRC. To us it means always being helpful to other teams during competition as well as sharing helpful hints and lessons learned from your own mistakes. This is the only sport where you are actually encouraged to share lessons learned from within your playbook. Now of course, it is the responsibility of those who receive the knowledge not to copy someone else's hard work, ideas and design and claim it as their own. However, we believe that it's worth the risk to share and dream of what might become when we all work and learn from one another. Within our team, coopertition is embodied in our understanding that we might not always see eye to eye, but we are going to respect each other's ideas and look for ways that we can compromise. We have definitely gained an appreciation for testing the limits of what can be accomplished when we work together as a team.