We held our first “official” meeting of the new season Saturday, officially welcoming new members Koen and Jacob, who spent most of the summer hanging out with the team so they were well on board by Saturday already anyway.  And we also welcomed this season’s new apprentice, Andres!

Andres is following in the finest tradition of TDT apprentices, started by Ethan back in 2009, and followed by Ryder in 2011.  Apprentices have been students that are younger  than the rest of the team – usually 11 or 12 – and who aren’t too familiar with FIRST, but like TDT or would like to learn more about FTC as opposed to FLL. The tradition is so enjoyed, as a matter of fact, that team members elected to change the title of the role from “apprentice” to “intern,” pending Andres’ approval. Andres wholeheartedly agreed!

We also were proud and happy to recognize TDT Alumni Joel Croteau’s achievement of becoming a FIRST Americorps VISTA, serving FIRST in central Florida.

The first half of the meeting was our annual Parents Meeting,welcoming new members,  introducing for our new families and reviewing for our veteran families, Team Duct Tape Philosophy, Code of Conduct, Meeting Expectations and more (you can find all our team foundational documents on our Library page).

Setting clear expectations at the start of each season makes for smooth sailing all (or most!) season long.  Over the years, we’ve learned that team members will usually rise to the highest expectations set of them, and parents assured that coaches and mentors have their children’s best interests and future coping skills at heart will support the team fully and strongly, helping ensure those skills are solidly rooted.

After the Parent Meeting, TDT members set to the task of disassembling Otis, our tried and true elevator robot from our Bowled Over season. Otis was a great robot, and took us to the FTC World Championship in 2012. But parts were needed and it had already started to be cannibalized to keep Sheldon running, so it was time to break Otis down.  Sheldon will be our demo bot for the coming season.

It was a great meeting, and it’s exciting to be revving back up for our 6th season, with Kick-Off next week and a whole new game to play!

Our “Guess the Game” game is still underway,too! If you want to play along, don’t forget to enter your game guesses by Friday, Sept. 6!

Rip it! Stick it! Done! 2013-14 Season – Here We Come!