Two weeks into the new season and Team Duct Tape’s hard at work, brainstorming, learning, building and with a full outreach calendar.  A week ago, we enjoyed a fun Google+ Hangout hosted by the Bears FTC team from Mexico, and joined by  Landroids FTC 4220, of New Jersey,  and Team Beta FTC 3550, from Iowa.  We hope to link up again later on in the season.

After that, the team dug in with some focused brainstorming, worked out team roles and organized the meeting schedule for the coming weeks. With a foreshortened season  due to the new Super Regionals, time is of the essence. So TDT is taking a sort of “divide and conquer” (the tasks) approach to the season, with some team members participating in outreach events, others going to programming mentoring sessions, and different team members handling different build tasks at different times.

The team is also taking a more nose-to-the-grindstone approach to the Engineering Notebook this season, with entries being completed at the end of each meeting rather than as a take-home assignment. That way sketches and design notes are captured right away, and everyone provides input for each entry to make sure all the salient points are included.

This coming Saturday, we’ll be holding at least part of our meeting at Bar Camp Tampa Bay at the University of South Florida School of Business, and look forward to showing BarCamp attendees our build process and programming work, and learning for them throughout the day. We’re excited about the opportunity and look forward to making more friends in the growing Tampa Bay tech community.