With rule books in hand, the team discusses all aspects of Rebound Rumble. Credit Dee Weber, Team Hammond
“When brainstorming, people just sit around like we are now, and just throw out ideas. Sometimes it’s liquid metal or a hovercraft or all kinds of crazy stuff. However, in brainstorming, there are no bad ideas. We will not “boo” at anyone. We may get a laugh from some and we may have a good time with others, but what happens is that even the craziest idea over here will spark the seed of another idea over there. Before you know it, we have a design idea to win. This thing works! I have seen it done for each of our 16 previous years and it is done successfully in business all the time.”
This is the speech that our lead engineer mentor, Bill Beatty, known on the team as “Mister Bill”, traditionally uses to start off our first meeting after kick-off. The team has 24 hours to digest as much of the games as possible. Everyone involved on the team is asked to participate and it is one of the students’ mandatory meetings.
With this year’s game being so dynamic, much of the time is spent clarifying the more than 100 pages of rules. The students are particularly vocal this year with one student claiming he and his teammate have of come up with an idea will be the “lock” to victory. Moods are up and energy levels high as the team shoots out ideas, learns of some of the intricacies of the game and starts the intense process of the FIRST Robotics Competition.
There is much discussion on the 2 focuses of the game, shooting the ball and balancing on the ramp. It is good to see that nearly everyone in attendance makes a contribution. All of the ideas are written down and will be read back to the group at the start of our next meeting. We will continue to brainstorm for part of our 2nd meeting for any follow up ideas. After that starts the push to get the field built so that we can see just what challenges await us.
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For more information on Team Hammond visit www.hammond.k12.in.us/teamhammond.
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