Kit Happens! Be Prepared

Friday, January 2 - Saturday, January 3, members of the Chicago Knights Robotics team gathered together to prepare for the kickoff.

Attendees:

Students: Pasama, Terry, Chris, Juan, Raven, Sierra, Porscha, JT, Lydia, Monica, Brett, Jazmyn Mentors: James Dowd, Ray Llanes, Jackie Moore, John Moore
Volunteers: Khalid Matarieyah, William Mitchell

Pre-Planned Absence (ie with prior notification):

Students: Max (attended kickoff in Denver), Carl (injured leg - on medical hiatus), Finn (traveling w/family), and James (traveling w/family)
Mentor: Damien Blanchard (traveling w/family)

Accomplishments during lock-in:

1. reviewed communications tools available to team and ensured all present could use them
2. used team's decision process to plan menu for Friday night dinner (identify goals, prioritize
3. goals, brainstorm ideas, evaluate ideas against TEAM goals, assign numerical values to ideas, calculate the weighted value of each idea and rank numerically)
4. reorganized the workshop (lots of physical labor!)
5. each subteam represented chose meeting days and had preliminary discussions about plans
6. control systems team worked on new control system benchtest
7. drive team (plus) cleaned and re-tightened connections for 2007 robot
8. practiced "12 days of kickoff" presentation for Saturday kickoff

Saturday, after breakfast (special thanks to William Mitchell who not only donated breakfast, but also helped prepare it!) and a quick run-through of the "12 days of kickoff," we headed over to Hermann Hall where we were joined by Jared and Mike Johnson (we've all heard about people who would give you the shirt off their back; well, Mike Johnson literally did that! When a member pulled out of the presentation at the last minute, Mike took off his team shirt so a substitute (Khalid) who did not have a shirt could wear one on the stage. Thank you Mike for your generosity, and thank you Khalid for stepping in with no notice!)

The "12 days of kickoff" was a big hit and Dennis Roberson has declared it a start of a new tradition for the Midwest FRC organization. We've been asked to post it to YouTube and to forward a copy to Dean Kamen and Paul Gudonis (president of FIRST); Look for an email announcing its availability! We also met a potential member whose family is moving to Chicago from California (Cecily, a high school junior and current member of FRC #8); Students Mike and Capri, and mentor Damien Blanchard joined us for the webcast. Jared and Brett attended the Control Systems Workshop while the rest of the team (including our guest, Cecily) attended the Q & A.

Afterwards, we all headed back to the Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority house for lunch and KOP inventory. Damien Blanchard led a kickoff debrief discussion with our team. We were joined by two other community based teams for the kit inventroy: PHP Robotics from Hopkins Park and the Ark of St Sabina from Chicago. Jackie Moore decided to forgo the originally planned team meeting due to a lack of sleep. As a team, we began cleaning up while waiting for parents, with Porshcha, JT, Lydia, Monica, and Jazmyn stayed behind to help Jackie and John Moore with the final cleanup of the house.

Kit happened, and we are prepared!