Wondering where we’ve been this summer? Our team has had quite the busy summer break!

We kicked it all off with our annual Sturgis Falls celebration! While we didn’t participate in the actual parade for this area event, we did have our usual booth and display where we showed off a robot and talked to our team. We even had a big new addition this year!

Some may ball is a nuisance, some call it a hobby, we even call it both! Cubing, not bear cubs, but cubes! Speed solving and learning different algorithms to solve and make patterns. Some are rectangular, others aren’t rectangular in the least! It’s become so popular with not only students on our team, but it has spread to our school and FTC team as well! While we do need to know when to put them away, we also learned when to bring them out. Check out the cube mosaics we’ve made in this youtube video.

It’s not too hard to find a familiar face in there!

We brought in the University of Northern Iowa MiniSumo Robotics Camp for a day to show them all about what FIRST Robotics is about.

We wanted to give students a challenge with our own “build season” and game. Check it out here:

We were also spotted at the State Fair! This year they asked us back for not one weekend, but for two! What a great experience! We brought along our 2013 and 2012 robots to demonstrate and even brought some of our parade VEX bots for anyone to drive! Helping out the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council is always a pleasure of ours. We can even be found in their August newsletter from our February visit to STEM Day at the Capitol. Check it out here:

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs167/1111870609743/archive/1114681215162.html

We’re starting new Jr. FLL teams this year! We’ve also been seeing our usual crop of new students with an increase in female interest. We’re looking at a bright year ahead for team growth and development.

We’re hosting an FLL Mentors training Kick Off Event this weekend and then later that day our FTC Teams will kick off! We have the funding for three FTC teams this year! We can’t wait to get started!

Good luck teams!

P.S. We’re still hoping it’s a water game this year!