School of Robotics Event (Bukit Timah), Outreach Event with Team #7539 (Mumbai), Skype call with our First Sponsor R. Sekhsaria (India-based):

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Our holiday season has begun! It was a grace period of 3 weeks before the build season finally began! Whoever was still in Singapore, our base, was ready to help through a multitude of outreach events planned over the holidays. Those abroad, such as Saarthak and Sanika, also attempted to attend and volunteer at those in foreign nations - their interactions with another FRC team from India, Elev8, helped teach hearing impaired students to build robots using Lego. The 30 children were fascinated to see the seeming ease and joy in building a working robot. 

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Our team had sent a small group of students to attend an event at Bukit Timah, ‘School of Robotics’. The primary aim of ‘School of Robotics’ was to aid teams participating in the FIRST Lego League, FLL, another FIRST competition similar to FRC, but more intertwined with Lego (Mindstorms). Our team representatives acted as volunteers, helping manage the event and aiding the children along their way. They fixed faulty props for the competition, designed the robot to complete the required tasks, and created a simple block program for them to use. It was a learning experience for us as well! We explored further mechanisms for the drive base, and learnt of different types of motors. The mentor recommended Tetrix for our own FRC robot, and altogether, it was an enjoyable and successful experience. 

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Another set of students from our team had organised a call with India-based potential sponsor and FIRST veteran Rohit Sekhsaria. Mr. Sekhsaria had spent several years helping teams in FRC, and our team was no exception. After hearing our pitch and presentation of ideas, he asked a variety of questions which we answered after great thought and discussion. We couldn’t be happier when he sponsored us with $1000 to reduce the costs of participation in the competition.