Day-1:
The 3-day workshop started off great - team Sigma arrived from the airport at the venue of this workshop - Venkatesh’s house in Nagalli Hills. We welcomed them and they were ecstatic to watch our robot in action and noted all the areas that could be improved. We worked on the robot till about 7 in the evening and that’s when the team-building exercises started where we played a few games which helped us get to know each other better.
There were 4 of them - Kabir (documentation and strategy), Agastya (documentation), Kavish (build and programming) and Aiyan (building and programming). All of them were equally helpful in their respective fields. We couldn’t do anything in the documentation field because a lot of the team hadn’t arrived yet. After the team-building exercises, we had a delicious dinner and bid farewell.
Day-2:
The second day was filled with work on the robot and on the engineering notebook. They reconfigured the controls of the robot and work started. Work such as fixing the claw on properly and other attachments.
The documentation team worked hard on the engineering notebook with the help of Agastya and by the end of the day, close to about 50 pages were completed and a design theme was selected. He ran us through what the notebook needed and showed a few examples too.
I spent some time taking interviews with our members which I later edited into a feedback video.
We had a fabulous lunch out on the balcony and then we were back to work. Some of us wanted to control the robots for the competition (this role is called the driver role) and so we practised for some time.
Soon enough evening loomed around the corner and we had those team-building exercises again. We had a lot of fun and so did they! Then for a change, we took them out to dinner at a really nice restaurant and ended the day on a high note.
Day-3:
This was the big day! The IT minister of Goa came, and we welcomed him and showcased our robot to him through a demonstration done by Sai Pranav and me. Then, all of us spoke about FTC, this competition, what we’ve done, etc. After that, he gave a speech about the rate of changing technology amongst other things and then congratulated us. Once that event was done we had another delicious meal.
Then team Sigma ran us through everything that will happen at the competition and that was it - the amazing workshop was at its end. We then went to the beach with them and then they left for the airport.
All in all, it was a great experience where each of us learnt a lot and when I look back at that weekend, I have no regrets about skipping tons of homework. :D I feel blessed to have got this opportunity and I’m sure my teammates feel the same.
