Mostly we’re probably not ready, but here we come anyway, for our first ROBOT League of Tampa Bay meet of the season, at Hillsborough High School on Saturday, November 17.   The event is free and open to the public, so bring family and friends  and join in the fun.

We figure even if all we can do is run defense, we’ll be the best defense runners we can be!  Hopefully, though, we’ll be able to do a little more by Saturday.  Our new team members are learning first hand the challenges between conceptualizing a great design and actually putting it into practice.   Just because you can CAD out cool gearing doesn’t mean it will necessarily fall right into place on your machine. Fortunately, there’s always Plan B; i.e. there’s more than one way to power an part!

Team members have been working hard together, and in collaboration with our great mentors and coaches, and the journey so far has been instructive, if somewhat daunting. The League format foreshortens the season a bit, with the meet requirements  that necessitate participating in some earlier competitions than we probably would have with a mostly new team.  But it’s a good challenge and team members have gamely taken it on. Two extra meetings this week should put us in better shape for Saturday.

  Many thanks to Mr. Markun, of Tampa Technik who, even with a broken arm, has used his one good arm to instruct and counsel; and to our coaches, Mr. & Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and to all our great parents for ferrying team members from Odessa, to Oldsmar to St. Pete!

And special gratitude to FTC teams Smoke & Mirrors and Hillsborough High School’s team Hydra for the GP loan of parts and practice equipment.

We love our FTC Community!