To promote FIRST Robotics and to motivate other people, Project Peacock participates in a lot of outreach events. Some of these events are specific to FIRST, while others are to get other kids and adults excited about STEAM. In all, we have helped organize, lead, and participated in twelve events over the past year to promote STEAM and FIRST robotics. In addition, we are a founding member of the Tulsa FTC League and help setup and host league meets throughout the season. This section details our activities and the level of participation from the team.
At the end of last season, on March 16th, 2019, we co-hosted a special invitational event for FTC teams at Memorial High School. The idea for this event came from Kyler, a Project Peacock Alum. Teams from all over the region were invited. Eight teams from across Oklahoma and 2 from Arkansas came to hold a day-long Rover Ruckus tournament. The coach from Augustine Christian Academy attended and decided to start up a team. Their team is 16240 – Chargers. They are a rookie team and are participating in the Tulsa league system.
To recruit and grow our team and the post, we host an open house every year. At the open house, we show people who are interested, what we do and how fun robotics is. We’ve gained a few members and have gotten a lot of people interested in robots using this event. At this event we let kids come try out our robots and see how our booth is set up and see all the different programs we have for summer.
On June 15, 2019, Southwestern Oklahoma State University hosted a STEAM camp for Oklahoma City-area girls to learn about STEAM. One of our current members, along with two alumni and a mentor attended this event and brought our robot from last year to showcase FTC and to spread the message of FIRST. These four representatives spent 36 hours doing outreach that day.
This past summer, we organized and staffed a camp for at-risk youth at the Tulsa Dream Center. Over the course of the week, we taught kids in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade how to program Lego EV3 Robots much like the ones used in FLL. By the end of the week, we had volunteered for 53 hours.
Over the summer, one of our alumni organized an FTC Training day to teach members of local FTC teams how to use Fusion 360. Two of our members attended this event to help teach the class, which was primarily targeted for teams who wanted to get experience with CAD. There were two sessions taught at this training session. In addition to the CAD session, there was also a coaches and mentor training session. In total, we spent 6 hours teaching at this event.
For the past four years, we have attended the Tulsa Maker Faire as a Post. We bring all three teams’ FTC robots from the previous season as well as the FLL teams’ robots to showcase what we do as an organization. We also give presentations with other FTC and FRC teams about our robots. This year, the Maker Faire was held on August 24. In total, we as a team spent 46.5 hours doing outreach at this event.
On September 7, 2019, we co-hosted the 2019 Tulsa FTC kickoff at Memorial High School. We helped staff this event and organized and taught an FLL programming class that morning. In total, including time helping set up for this event, we spent 38 hours doing outreach for this event.
Because we are closely affiliated with the Scouts of America and BSA Troop 26 as a BSA Explorer Post, we staff the BSA Fall Festival each year. The Fall Festival is held to train Cub Scouts (1st to 5th grade) in the fundamental skills of Scouts and to provide them with fun activities to attend with their troops. This event was held on September 21 of this year. Over the course of the day, our team members spent 36.25 hours doing outreach.
On November 16th, we hosted an FLL and Jr. FLL qualifier at Booker T Washington High School. They provided the venue and some volunteers. Normally we host the event at TU but due to a change in management, we weren’t able to get that location, and Booker T.’s robotics team was going through a change in leadership (old teacher/head coach left), so they weren’t able to plan a qualifier this year. Thus they provided the location but we put on the event team members volunteering as judges, referees, and field resetters. In total as a post, we volunteered for 55 hours at this event
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