Home School Fair of Southern California Demonstration
Date: May 26, 2014
Time: 8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.
# of Members: 7
The Home School Fair was an all day event celebrating Memorial Day in Ontario, CA. Whitney’s FTC, FLL, and VRC teams were all present to educate visitors about their respective organizations and provide demonstrations. Approximately 200-300 people visited WHS Robotics' exhibition. Instantly, we drew much attention and rave from students interested in the robots we had on display. Subsequently, their parents would come by and ask questions about the high level aspects of our robotics organization, such as the differences between our teams, how to start a team, what competitions were like, and where they could find other sources to learn more about robotics. The simple process to get started prompted a few parents to consider starting their own teams! To aid parents’ understanding, we handed out numerous FIRST brochures, team business cards, and assorted fliers.
All in all, the Home School Fair was a successful publicity event that helped us spread awareness about robotics, STEM, and most importantly, gracious professionalism, an ideal necessary in FIRST. Children and parents alike were all extremely interested our demonstrations, especially our VEX freeze tag robots and FLL robots that anyone could pick up and play. As a team, we succeeded in publicizing to a typically localized close-knit community.
A few issues that sprung up with demo included forgetting mats and lack of help from the team. Since we forgot the bring the mats, our robots operated on concrete, which elevated the amount of wear and tear, especially for Windsor. For the VRC section of our demo, we were understaffed, so there was only one person manning the area. This proved to be problematic when robots broke and batteries died. It was hard for a single person to manage the kids, repair robots, and provide information at an efficient rate. Next time, we should ensure that there are more members, because it is better to have too many people than not enough.
Time: 8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.
# of Members: 7
The Home School Fair was an all day event celebrating Memorial Day in Ontario, CA. Whitney’s FTC, FLL, and VRC teams were all present to educate visitors about their respective organizations and provide demonstrations. Approximately 200-300 people visited WHS Robotics' exhibition. Instantly, we drew much attention and rave from students interested in the robots we had on display. Subsequently, their parents would come by and ask questions about the high level aspects of our robotics organization, such as the differences between our teams, how to start a team, what competitions were like, and where they could find other sources to learn more about robotics. The simple process to get started prompted a few parents to consider starting their own teams! To aid parents’ understanding, we handed out numerous FIRST brochures, team business cards, and assorted fliers.
All in all, the Home School Fair was a successful publicity event that helped us spread awareness about robotics, STEM, and most importantly, gracious professionalism, an ideal necessary in FIRST. Children and parents alike were all extremely interested our demonstrations, especially our VEX freeze tag robots and FLL robots that anyone could pick up and play. As a team, we succeeded in publicizing to a typically localized close-knit community.
A few issues that sprung up with demo included forgetting mats and lack of help from the team. Since we forgot the bring the mats, our robots operated on concrete, which elevated the amount of wear and tear, especially for Windsor. For the VRC section of our demo, we were understaffed, so there was only one person manning the area. This proved to be problematic when robots broke and batteries died. It was hard for a single person to manage the kids, repair robots, and provide information at an efficient rate. Next time, we should ensure that there are more members, because it is better to have too many people than not enough.