TEAM ILLUSION 4464 - WEEKLY NEWSLETTERS
NOVEMBER 7, 2014
TEAM ACTIVITY UPDATE
We have twice weekly meetings on Mondays and Fridays. These began effective Oct 27th. The meetings began at 6:00 pm instead of 5:00 pm; the doors of Orbit Lane workshop opened at 5:00 PM.
A signup sheet will be available at the meeting room starting on Monday for parents to volunteer to help with the “Parent-of-the-Day” responsibilities. The list will need to be filled with parents’ names. Parents can choose to volunteer on Monday for future dates. Chris will get a web based “Sign-Up Genius” sign up form ready also.The entire team should visit the Team Illusion website often to read the newsletter, know the meeting agenda and the class schedules and content.
ADDITIONAL TEACHING SESSIONS
We will be scheduling teaching additional sessions in the topics of JAVA, Electrical Board Set-up, Mechanical Set-Up and Web 2.0 (website and other Internet based communications) on Mondays and Fridays for the rest of the off season, with the exception of Thanksgiving Week and Christmas Week. It is very important that the students come faithfully, on time, so that they are truly prepared for the build season that starts on January 3, 2015.
IMPORTANT - PARENTS MEETING
The parents will need to have a meeting to discuss several administrative issues - the meeting will be on Thursday, November 13th, 2014, from 6-8pm. Issues that we need to discuss are fund raisers, parent-of-the-day scheduling, grant writing and the establishment of a sub committee to complete our 501(c)(3) application. Please email [email protected] to confirm that you can come to the meeting. If you cannot attend in person you may be able to Skype in...
REQUIRED FORMS
If you have not downloaded and filled in and returned the four required Team Illusion Forms yet, please visit the website and download the forms from there. . Your child cannot be left alone at Orbit Lane until these forms are completed...CURRICULUM
Stock room – The garage needs to be fully cleaned up, so we can properly use it as a stock room. We are looking for volunteers. On Monday, November 3rd, Eli helped the Team start the big task of cleaning up the garage and work area to transform them into a real Workshop. It is important for all students to help Eli will as he explains the various parts and the whole team will know where to find each part during the course of the coming pre-build, build, and competition seasons.
Assembly area: There are two large tables that can be used for assembly and demonstration purposes.
Programming space: Vijay and Alex are reconfiguring the area and moving tables around. Parents and Students, please volunteer to help them.
Pictures to be hanged on the walls; set up and help.
FINANCIAL ISSUES
TEAM ACTIVITY UPDATE
We have twice weekly meetings on Mondays and Fridays. These began effective Oct 27th. The meetings began at 6:00 pm instead of 5:00 pm; the doors of Orbit Lane workshop opened at 5:00 PM.
- Monday – 3rd Nov
- We had an excellent JAVA teaching session last night with Alex. He introduced the students to the basics of JAVA code and had them work on a small project. We look forward to several more sessions so that all of the students are familiar with the Programming/Controls aspect of the Robotics Team.
- Friday – 7th Nov
- Three students visited Bill's Machine shop and worked on creating more parts for our off-season drive train project. It is hopeful that we will be ready to assemble it in the next couple of weeks.
- Students must have Solidworks, Netbeans, Notepad++ installed on their computers - email Satya for a Solidworks registration number
- Bill’s colleague, John Carpenter, delivered beautifully fabricated gear box brackets using his CNC machine, donating his time and his materials. He deserves a big thanks from the Team Illusion students. How about the students all send a card and T-shirt to him?
- Bill also deserves a big thanks for fabricating the drive parts. Fabrication will be completed with another session, to be scheduled most probably for Friday the 10th of Nov
A signup sheet will be available at the meeting room starting on Monday for parents to volunteer to help with the “Parent-of-the-Day” responsibilities. The list will need to be filled with parents’ names. Parents can choose to volunteer on Monday for future dates. Chris will get a web based “Sign-Up Genius” sign up form ready also.The entire team should visit the Team Illusion website often to read the newsletter, know the meeting agenda and the class schedules and content.
ADDITIONAL TEACHING SESSIONS
We will be scheduling teaching additional sessions in the topics of JAVA, Electrical Board Set-up, Mechanical Set-Up and Web 2.0 (website and other Internet based communications) on Mondays and Fridays for the rest of the off season, with the exception of Thanksgiving Week and Christmas Week. It is very important that the students come faithfully, on time, so that they are truly prepared for the build season that starts on January 3, 2015.
IMPORTANT - PARENTS MEETING
The parents will need to have a meeting to discuss several administrative issues - the meeting will be on Thursday, November 13th, 2014, from 6-8pm. Issues that we need to discuss are fund raisers, parent-of-the-day scheduling, grant writing and the establishment of a sub committee to complete our 501(c)(3) application. Please email [email protected] to confirm that you can come to the meeting. If you cannot attend in person you may be able to Skype in...
REQUIRED FORMS
If you have not downloaded and filled in and returned the four required Team Illusion Forms yet, please visit the website and download the forms from there. . Your child cannot be left alone at Orbit Lane until these forms are completed...CURRICULUM
- Revised Curriculum will be posted on the Team website. Students should look at the class content for each day and come prepared for the class. How about a Saturday session?
- We are running short of two teaching sessions: the delays are due to extra days needed to organize the workshop, and also due to no-shows by outside guest mentors.
- We are exploring for the possibility of including another day for training on Web 2.0 technology, i.e., website, social network, photography, newsletters on the web, et., Chris will train students and all students are expected to participate. Please think about this and let us know what day will work best. Chris’ best evenings are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her house is about 10 minutes from Orbit and has excellent Internet connectivity, a requirement for this aspect of the team.
Stock room – The garage needs to be fully cleaned up, so we can properly use it as a stock room. We are looking for volunteers. On Monday, November 3rd, Eli helped the Team start the big task of cleaning up the garage and work area to transform them into a real Workshop. It is important for all students to help Eli will as he explains the various parts and the whole team will know where to find each part during the course of the coming pre-build, build, and competition seasons.
Assembly area: There are two large tables that can be used for assembly and demonstration purposes.
Programming space: Vijay and Alex are reconfiguring the area and moving tables around. Parents and Students, please volunteer to help them.
Pictures to be hanged on the walls; set up and help.
FINANCIAL ISSUES
- Greg has written to Grainger about the $5000 grant. Still waiting to hear from them.
- The Society of Women engineers is giving grants to teams that have women competitors. More women drivers in the team better the chance of getting this $1000 grant. We are working on the grant.
- Satya will write a letter to FIRST that the fund raising is in progress and will pay the remaining dues for the two FRC Regionals we signed up as soon as our funding situation improves.
- It is ESSENTIAL that we get some serious FUND RAISING going immediately. All parents and students should bring up ideas. The usual situation is that a parent/student combo heads up a given Fund Raiser for the team. Some ideas we have done in the past:
- Bushel of Crabs Raffle
- Marie's Gourmet Food sales
- Eco-Friendly LED Light Bulb Sales