After six intensive weeks of build season, it’s finally time for us to pack the trailer with our 2016 robot, Zenith, and drive north on 35 to Duluth for the FIRST Lake Superior regional competition. Our first regional is March 3 – 5, 2016 at the DECC, in Duluth. While builders were busy bagging and tagging on February 23rd – and making a short video about the robot design process — our team sent three representatives to the Edina Town Hall meeting held by our state Representatives and Senator. These are primarily “listening sessions,” when citizens have a chance to ask their elected officials questions about issues important to them. There, we met with Minnesota state Senator Melisa Franzen, a longtime supporter of hands-on STEM education, FIRST Robotics, and Team 1816. We also had the opportunity to introduce our Team and our STEM education initiatives to Minnesota state Representatives Ron Erhardt and Paul Rosenthal.
Our weekends have been anything but idle for The Green Machine. On February 20th, we displayed our 2016 robot, Zenith, to the public during our annual robot Open House and Robot Reveal. Many of our sponsors and community supporters attended this event, including our Mayor and school board members. We also brought back past robots, such as Zebruh (2015), Zeke (2014), and Zephyr (2012). The next day, Team 1816 put Zenith to the FIRST STRONGHOLD challenge for the first time at a Week Zero event. Members of our team helped plan this competition with host Team 4778-Stormbots and the Southwest Metro Hub. This was a great opportunity for our drive team to practice working with other teams before competing in our first regional.