Sunday, July 3rd
Sparklefest!
Sparklefest is an annual festival on July 3rd where many people come to celebrate. We decided to demonstrate our robots Cronus and Disco as part of the festivities this year. In around two weeks, we managed to plan transportation for the robot, gathered around 25 volunteers, and organized with the event organizers. Planning went well, and we were confident going into the event.
Before the event, a few team members helped transport supplies from our temporary robotics room and started setting up at Round Lake. At around 5:30, the rest of the volunteers showed up, and we were done setting up the tents, stands, and field by 6. Around this time, people started showing up. We quickly had many people asking about the robot and interacting with it, by catching and loading game pieces.
There were a lot of kids interested in interacting with the robot, but couldn’t or didn’t want to catch or load disks. So, being engineers, we figured out a way to get around the issue. We quickly drove back to the robotics room and grabbed something we hadn’t used in a while – a Dance Dance Revolution game pad. Once we had it hooked up to our robot Disco, the kids were able to move the robot with just their dance moves! Our problem solving and the robots proved to be quite popular, because we had around 470 total attendees!
Throughout the day, members drove a smaller drivetrain around the event to encourage people to check out the demo. We had a few short periods throughout the event where robots were shut off to fix issues, whether it be overheating motors or dead batteries. However, we quickly resolved these problems and kept engaging with attendees. Towards the end of the event, we switched out Cronus for Disco. However, at the end of the day, we shut down both robots because of power issues. But, we were able to create engagement by showing kids hands-on the different parts of the robot and how they worked.
In general, this was a great event. It engaged a considerable amount of people, and introduced a lot of new team members to the team! Thank you to everyone who helped out with the event, and everyone who attended!
Stay Connected With Us During The Entire Season!
If you want to stay connected with the team during the entire season. Feel free to check out our social media pages: