Reaching out to other teams to discuss game strategies, ask questions, and learn more about STEM together is an important part of every season. Since the COVID-19 pandemic prevents us from meeting in-person, with no scouting, we decided to make a Discord server to help us keep in touch.

Before the Qualifier, we communicated with 12 other Southern Illinois teams, now we have reached out to the State Qualifying Teams! Even though we have to be physically distant, we still have the FTC community.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers were in urgent need of PPE, Personal Protective Equipment. Wormgear Warriors, another FTC team in the community, started working to make masks, ear savers, and surgical scrub hats. Although we were not allowed to meet because of our school district’s rules, some of our team members were able to cut and sew fabric for SLU healthcare workers - in support of our community and another FTC team!

In early March, we went to a school board meeting. We gave a presentation about what FTC is and how our competitions work. During the presentation, we also showed school board members our robots and our engineering notebooks. School board members were impressed in what we had accomplished in just two years. They gave us more funding, and discussed how we can have a bigger room and more supplies.

Every February, the Granite City High School has an event called Warrior Way. At the end of February 2020, incoming freshmen got to explore the high school and see all the clubs, sports, and other activities that are offered. We set up our field in the main entrance, and showed incoming freshmen how a match would work, how to drive our robots, and what it meant to be a part of FTC.

We reached out to Boeing, and asked if we could have some of their engineers look over our robot for design reviews. They helped us by reviewing some of our robot designs, helped us organize parts, and talked about their jobs.

The volunteers each took the opportunity to tell us how they ended up working at Boeing, and what different STEM opportunities there were for students like us.

Because of our impressive work, Boeing also decided to sponsor us!

On March 9th, our community has started to lift COVID restrictions. This has allowed us new outreach opportunities, like going to Southwestern Illinois College - just down the road.

We used FTC CAD designing in relation to industrial machining. As an example, we learned how to use FTC servos in relation to Fusion360 CAD.

*You can view an ex-Welded member on the back of a CNC Trailer

We talked with Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Solar Car Team! On March 11th, they taught us about how solar cars are built and what special components they have on their car. The solar cars are entered into competitions that test for endurance, and they showed us pictures of the competition from previous years.

We taught them about FIRST, how FTC works, and what our team has been able to do. They conducted a design review - discussing how we should use stepper motors on the drawbridge to have control on angles, Vuforia for image processing with auto-aiming, and SolidWorks designing for CAD.

Before the pandemic hit, we were able to recruit and show incoming freshmen our robot through Warrior Way. This year we knew Warrior Way couldn’t happen, so we decided to bring the robotics team to our local junior high school! On March 9th and 10th, we showed them our robot and taught them about the team, FIRST, and what being a member of our team entails. We also discussed having an FLL team with administrators within the next couple of years. We can’t wait to start working with our new members!

All of our school’s usual homecoming activities had to be canceled due to the pandemic. Yet, our school still found a way to make some happen. In place of our usual parade, we held a “reverse parade” on March 8th, where school teams stood around the school while members of our community drove their cars past us. Our team made sure that we were able to showcase our robot! We launched candy (safely) to showcase our main objective of COB.