During the first weekend of March, Team Sprocket hosted the highly anticipated STEAM Fair event at the large Pomona Fairplex venue. An event attended by tens of thousands of students and teachers from all over the district, the STEAM Fair offered many opportunities for Sprocket to make their debut to a wide range of visitors. The fair lasted for two consecutive days, being reserved for dozens of school field trips on Friday and opened to the public on Saturday.
The team’s exhibition took about a third of an airplane hangar, with robots from both the previous and current competition seasons present for demonstration. Countless enthusiastic spectators watched in awe as Team Sprocket’s newest robot precisely landed power cells into the scoring port in quick succession. Those who visited the exhibition were also given the opportunity to operate both robots. Queues formed with excited participants who were ready to have a go at scoring points on a mock FRC field.
Team Sprocket’s venue also consisted of five workshops, meant to teach many fundamental concepts of STEM. For example, the telegraph workshop allowed visitors to simulate electrical telegraphs by providing them with switches and wires to alternate current. The activity mainly focused on the mechanics of an electrical telegraph as well as the conceptual idea of “on” and “off” states, similar to the dots and dashes found in Morse Code as well as ones and zeros in binary.
Overall, we are very happy with the turn out for this year’s STEAM Fair. Going into the preparations for the Pasadena City College STEAMPosium on the 21st, the team is feeling confident for another successful event.