August 2022: AUVSA Pathfinder Symposium

Dr. Richard Collins from the Pathfinder chapter invited local robotics teams to participate in the three day symposium. Each team would have a booth for a half day during one of the three days. Our time to shine was this morning from 8 AM to noon.

We packed a trailer with two of our robots and some team publicity materials on Monday after school, then met in the College Academy parking lot at 7:30 AM on Tuesday. After loading our vehicles we headed to the Davidson Center at the Space & Rocket Center.

As soon as we got there we were informed that we need a driving robot on the stage in the Davidson Center Theater to start off the day. We had to wait until Mayor Paul Finley of Madison, AL spoke, then we had the stage. The students quickly got the robot turned on and demonstrated how the robot drives with mecanum wheels to all the symposium attendees in the theater. 

We then went to set up our 10' x 10' booth (same size as a pit at competition) with two of our robots and some trifolds showing team photos from our past seasons. The students spent time either staying at the booth to talk to attendees, or visiting the other exhibitors under the Saturn V. 

A second robotics team also was attending at the same time as we were, the Nerdettes from Huntsville High School. 

The team had a great time going around to all the exhibitors and talking to them about their drones and other displays. And getting free stuff, of course!