Flu Shots, Shopping, and FIRST Robots!

By Team 1816, October 17, 2009
Outreach

Southdale Robotics Showcase Area

Southdale Robotics Showcase Area
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Southdale Mall, Edina Robotics FIRST Team 1816-The Green Machine thanks Minnesota FIRST teams Team 2169-KingTeC, Prior Lake and Team 2264-Trojans, Wayzata, for helping make the Southdale Robotics Showcase a huge success. Shoppers, guests, friends and families had fun throughout the day examining the competition robots up close, and some even tried their hand at driving the robots (under the watchful supervision of FIRST team members, of course)!

“The Showcase was meant to introduce the regular shoppers of the mall to the FIRST program and engage them directly in what we do," says Dan P., 1816’s Outreach Lead. “There is no better attraction than a 5-foot robot rolling down, dumping balls and scooping them up again.”

Our event at Southdale was one of those events that directly reached out to the people of our community.
—Dan P.

FIRST has made it the duty of its teams to constantly reach out to their local communities in order to introduce them to a new kind of “playground” where high school students cultivate their imaginations and technical expertise. This is an extremely important task, in that it is reaching out to the community that brings FIRST into the public theater where everyone can recognize the usefulness and importance of FIRST, and go on to start their own programs in other schools.

Visitors

Visitors
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“Our event at Southdale was one of those events that directly reached out to the people of our community,” says Dan. “The majority of shoppers coming to Southdale that day did not have any knowledge of FIRST or what is it that we high school students do as a part of this program. When they entered the mall’s atrium they were greeted by massive robots traveling across the floor with crowds of people playing ball and watching others play ball with them. These are without doubt the people that truly need to be introduced to FIRST and why they should care that this is of benefit to all of us.”

Throughout the day, visitors requested information for starting their own FIRST Tech or FRC teams at their schools.

Throughout the day, visitors requested information for starting their own FIRST Tech or FRC teams at their schools. The event took place from 12 pm to 6 pm in the Southdale Mall Atrium, and featured demonstrations of robots from the 2007, 2008 and 2009 FIRST competitions. Visitors also had an opportunity to get a seasonal flu shot from at a booth set up right behind the robot exhibition space.