Frontiers of Flight Moon Day Outreach
Tags: outreach and motivatePersonhours: 84
Today, Iron Reign presented at the 15th annual Frontiers of Flight Museum “Moon Day” celebration, meant to honor the anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969. There were around 1,150 attendees, many of whom were kids. There, we hosted demos of both TauBot and our sister team, Iron Giant’s competition robot, and engaged with child attendees in LEGO Mindstorms programming activities in order to promote STEM and FIRST.
We taught kids the basics of block programming as they coded the basic Mindstorms robot to fight in the round “Sumo” circle. They used a color sensor to detect the black tape and stay within the circle as they battled each other’s robots. Afterward, they could experiment with the software and use their creativity to code whatever functions they wanted. We also introduced FIRST to them and their parents, how they can get involved in organizations such as FLL, and information about Iron Reign. We assembled a guide on getting your child into FIRST and posted it to this blog, which we shared at the event.
Additionally, we set up an entire game field to demo our robots and allow attendees to drive around Iron Giant’s robot. Many kids enjoyed driving around, scoring cones, and watching TauBot’s transfer. Along the way, we answered questions about our robot design and implementation and were able to talk to many adults in related fields about our work.
Finally, we had CartBot and the air cannons, which drove around the Museum, bringing joy to guests’ faces. Participants could “feed” the canon and watch as a Coca-Cola can be launched. Everyone had lots of fun catching the cans and even driving CartBot themselves.
Overall, presenting the museum for Moon Day was a major success and extremely fulfilling. For all the Iron Reign members, giving back to the community and sharing our love for robotics is a significant part of why we do FTC, and we are grateful for the ability to do so on a yearly basis.