Team Member
Aram
For many of us, this was the final goodbye. This Thursday was the final group meeting of the 2019/2020 Tech HEds “City Shapers” Team. The day was very wet for our picnic, but it was still good to say goodbye in person as we had not all met in person since March. Six team members, Sam MB, Elsie MB, Aram H, Jacob H, Louis W, John H, said goodbye to the team leaving space for new younger members to follow in their footsteps next season. Our sincerest ‘Thanks’ goes out to our fantastic coach, loyal readers, organizers and sponsors of FLL, and parents who have stood by our sides all throughout our “Technical” journey. It has been a great learning journey for each of us, and we will miss all of you.
Team Member Aram
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Due to the Covid-19 lockdown rules that have not yet been lifted we again settled to having our conversations over Discord video call. Our coach Mrs. D had sent out a list of three thing beforehand which we had to come up with and they were:
Annie Team Member This week was our first Tech HEds meeting over discord! Unfortunately we could not have our usual team meeting in Chippenham due to Covid-19 isolation rule. However, we were able to have a video call with all the members using discord. When we had all joined the call we were able to discuss how we were all coping with isolation, and what we were doing. As we are all homeschooled some of us were still doing school, and others were on their Easter Holidays. After we had all discussed some more team business, we talked about how things may work next season. There are going to be some changes in the team as this is Sam, John, and Elsie's last season in Tech HEds. We are all very gratefull for all their hard work over the previous seasons and their commitment to the team. Big THANK YOU to them on behalf of Tech HEds!!!
Team member, Jacob Due to the virus going around Aram, Jacob, John, Sam, and Elsie did not attend which is rather sad. Annie, Louis, Josh, and the robots had a peaceful day to themselves catching up with all the news in a way only children can. Although we did video call Aram and Jacob just to catch up. It being two weeks after the party and fully into March there was lots of things to talk about among the three of us. Unfortunately the Internationals in Greece to which we were planning to go to was cancelled because of the danger of Coronavirus which is very disappointing for all of us. ‘The Three Musketeers,’ Annie, Louis, and Josh, however despite the odds did not let anything dampen their spirit spending the day practicing building and programming by deciding on a mission which are on the City Shaper mat and begin to complete that which was thoroughly enjoyed. Out of season we meet every two weeks which means that the next time we intend to meet is in two weeks which will still hopefully go ahead. I am very sorry for the late posts. Thank you to all our readers.
Annie Team Member This week, as it was the party after the Nationals, we all met at Jacob and Aram’s home in Basingstoke and after we had sufficiently mused and thought over the ‘2020 England and Wales Final,' exercised our core values in a core values exercise, AND finished discussing any business, we all ate pizza together (YUMMY). Once we were able to move after eating pizza after pizza (which kept the cooks and ovens very busy), we played a few games, and then went straight to the ice rink for the second time for some more fun ice-skating (although the parent still refused to skate too)! All-in-all this was a very enjoyable 2nd Party!!
Louis and Annie Team Members The England & Wales National Final was held on 22nd February. It was held at UWE in Bristol. At about 7:45 AM the Team Registration opened and we were allowed to set up our pit. We did one or two robot practices which seemed to go alright. At 8:50 the opening ceremony started, with our good friends Darren and Collin once again being masters of ceremony. After that was our very first robot run. It was done Sam and Louis. It went alright, but perhaps not as good as we would have hoped, the second robot run by me and Jacob later in the day went a bit better, scoring about 230 points. Unfortunately, our third robot run, by Sam and Elsie, was quite similar to the first. We did not qualify for the knock-outs, coming 37th out of about 88 teams. In terms of our presentations, they were mixed too. The core values presentation was more of a Q&A with the judges, but we still managed to say all that we wanted to and they were impressed when we told them that 4/8 of our team members are new. The robot design was alright too, although there was some confusion as there always is between whether it was a Q&A session or a presentation. The judges especially enjoyed the rope mechanism on MTB. The project presentation went marvelously! The judges where engaged all the way through. They enjoyed the fun of our presentation but also grasped the engineering behind it. The best part was when it came to questions, and they were completely speechless! As the robot knockouts were going on through the afternoon, the team enjoyed going to the various STEM stands by Bechtel and other sponsor organisations. Jacob, Sam, and former team leader Peter H (who came as a spectator) had fun building an extremely high tower at the white LEGO bricks section (it was the highest there.) At 3:30 it was time for the award ceremony. We were all on the edge of our seats, or rather, the floor (we didn't come early enough for seats). In the end we won 1st Place project award, which included an invitation to go to the Greek Open International Competition in Thessaloniki. The competition is from the 13-16 May, and 7/8 are currently planning to come. On Thursday 6th May we are planning to go back to Basingstoke Ice Rink for our second victory pizza party! Thank you to all our readers who have stayed with us, and hopefully we will see some of you in Greece!
John Project Leader This week's meeting, Thursday 20th, is the last meeting before the City Shaper England & Wales National Final competition in the University of the West of England in Bristol. This morning we started off with doing devotions, then our coach assigned us different tasks. Aram, Elsie, Josh, Louis, Annie, and Jacob were assigned connecting the 2 parts of the key-rings ( the ring and Lego brick with Tech HEds on) together. Sam and John worked on the robot to make it perfect ready for the competition. We then all went outside into the garage to practice the Project and Core Values presentations. After running through them 2 or 3 times each we went back inside to practice our robot presentation before presenting it to our coach. Soon enough it was time for lunch! After eating our lunch some of the younger team members went outside to burn off some energy. While they were outside most of us cracked back on with work which Mrs. Dymond had assigned us. Sam, John, Jacob and Louis did robot runs while the others played some games. Once we had enough practice for Saturday some of us went home while some of the others stated a bit longer to perfect the robot. We all were prepared and hyped for the Big National tournament!!!
Team member, Jacob Today there was another birthday in the diary! Aram’s Birthday!! But that was not the only thing that was unusual because Mrs. Dymond had arranged for us to present our presentation to a local architect and structural engineer. They were rather surprise at the quantity of knowledge. The whole team appreciated the feedback that we received from them. After making our way back to the Dymond’s house we had a slow start to get everything organized and the table put up but when we were finally ready we assembled around the dining room table to begin to talk about and go through the Robot Design, Project, Core Values Presentations, and which jobs each person was to do during the meeting. We decided on:
Annie Team Member 2 Weeks and Counting! This week, as we are nearing competition day, we focused on core values and project. John, Sam, and Jacob spent most of the day working on the robot to improve reliability and build a new frame. We have decided to extend one of our mission runs because we have time left at the end of the challenge. We also decided to reprogram Mission Trip B because we wanted to improve its reliability. However, whilst they were doing “techy stuff,” the rest of us spent the time doing core values and final tweaks to the project.
Over lunch, the weather had been kind enough to us to grace Chippenham with its radiating smiles. This enabled us to resume football for the week, which was very nice. Also, whilst the older ones were playing football, Louis, Josh, Elsie and Annie went and played a different game. After lunch, Mrs. Dymond had come up with a very fun way in which we could spell out our team name – Tech HEds – using our bodies! After much deliberation, we finally managed to compete it, at the same time John finished working on MTB! Great timing, as it was nearing 3:30 and the table and Lego needed packing up until next week! Team Member Aram Today we started with getting the logo board out and robots, then we went to another room and did devotions, then we went into other rooms, sorted out some core value things like the core values presentation, and just things like that. Other team members worked on the robot to make it better. We have done the Regionals, so now we are working toward Nationals! We made our board for the presentation a little better, like adding more things to it. We all made some suggestions for the board! After this we had lunch, we had it inside today as it was too wet and cold outside. Then we went out to play ninja, after lunch. but that did not work as two team members kept running off around the block, it was quite funny though. Soon two other members did as well, not to mention any names!! But then we did manage to play at least one game of Ninja before we came back inside! Then we did more things for the core values presentation and the board. However, soon enough the day came to an end, so we all started to pack away everything and soon left.
Team member, Elsie |
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