Team 4201 is able to demonstrate how much it had grown through presentations and demonstrations. This is a great way to get other companies to sponsor and to continue to support the team.
Martin Chapman, part of the design team, describes his personal account of his first time giving a presentation on the team's robot at the engineering company of Boeing:
"I traveled to Boeing with some of my FRC team members to present our prototype robot, JAP (Just A Prototype," to the employees there while they were eating lunch. We showed them footage of the robot in action and explained both our competition and what FRC was. Each team member explained each section of the robot. My friend and I were in charge of the drive train. We explained that it was a West Coast design, where each side of the robot was controlled by two motors and a gearbox with a pneumatic shifter, and the middle wheels were lowered. We showed them our catapult, winch, and feeder design. The winch used gears attached to a small arm to lower the catapult down and increase the tension in our tubing. When the winch released the catapult, the tubing would snap it forward and shoot the ball out. We used pneumatic pistons connected to the sides of our feeder arm in order to move it back and forth. The feeder had 3D-printed wheels at the top, and a motor would spin them backwards or forwards in order to feed the ball in or out.
"One of the people who came up to us asked some pretty tough questions at first, and when he realized that we were high school students and we created this robot in just six weeks, he was very impressed and wished he had done this in high school. He told us that this was a great opportunity for real engineering experience, and it will give us valuable tools for us in our future careers."
Team 4201 has been able to give presentations and demonstrations of our robots since 2012. The Vitruvian Bots were first invited to give a robot demonstration at Boeing after competing at the Los Angeles Regional. The team showcased the robot during the Bring Your Kid to Work Event. At the event, engineers brought their children to come to their workplace. There, the robot was able to feed in the basketballs and shoot it into the basketball hoops. The children were very impressed with our robot and had loads of fun playing with the robot by feeding in the ball or catching the basketball.
Team 4201 has given robot demonstrations not only at the engineering company of Boeing but also at the local community college of El Camino. The team's robot was demonstrated during El Camino College's Robotics Day in 2012. This was very exciting for our team as we were only a rookie team and yet we were now demonstrating how much our hard work had paid off. The demonstration was very similar to the one we had given to Boeing. The robot showcased how it was able to feed in the basketballs and was the able to shoot it off.
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