Thank you HID Global!
FIRST Team 1816 sponsor visits have been on a longer-than-expected pause due primarily to the COVID-19 pandemic. But, the Team is now picking up where we left off!
In June, we brought our 2022 Season ZAP robot to HID Global’s Eden Prairie, MN headquarters. A packed conference room of HID Global employees greeted us, due to the promotion of our event by our HID mentors – Tanya Snyder, John Skoglund, and 1816 Team alum and mechanical engineer, Evan Pastor! Their enthusiastic support of our team carried over to other HID colleagues, with many crowding around our robot and a few attempting to drive it a few feet.
Over the 2022 Season, we created a tight knit relationship with our multi-year sponsor, HID Global. They not only donated valuable materials and resources, but even more so, their time.
- 3 full-time Mentors (Evan Pastor, Tanya Snyder, John Skoglund)
- Parts fabrication (machining and 3D printing)
- Donation of 3 retired CAD workstations
- Printed Name Badges (ID cards) used for identification purposes at Minnesota & North Dakota FIRST regional events
- Welding of our new Team pit structure
- Scrap bin diving for fundraising via resale and recycling of materials and parts
- Help identifying donations of materials from a wide variety of manufacturers
- SolidWorks CAD instruction, both at our workshop and at HID facilities
- Oscilloscope donation
- Featured Team 1816 in a special HID video narrated by Ms. Snyder and Evan Pastor
What stands out the most is how our HID mentors suggested and helped guide ongoing robot design reviews. It was in those meetings that we got straight-forward advice from professional engineers in the field about our CAD designs and how we could improve them to build a better robot. We continued to make iterations on our robot during and in-between competitions. With their help, our knowledge and perspective expanded. We now look forward to another successful season ahead with HID. -By Venna W.