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Popsicles in California Heat

“Burbank Young Professionals: Grill and Give,” Johnny Carson Park, Summer, Off-season, 2023

Hot. But we had popsicles so it was pretty sweet. 

Besides that, we had a nice time hanging out with one another, meeting with important Burbank figures such as the Boys and Girls Club, Department of Parks and Rec., and California Senators Portantino and Menjivar while doing demos with 2022’s Kitty. 

Note to future us: don’t do demos anywhere near grass… cleaning it out of transmissions isn’t fun. 

All in all, thank you to the Burbank Young Professionals for having us! We look forward to working with more organizations to promote robotics across Burbank! 

— Luci, Captain of Team 980 

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Team 980 Planting New Seeds with The Burbank Board of Education!

In order of left to right: Sydney, Kitty (the robot), Ali, and Luci

Recording of the meeting found here (980 comes on at around 3:30 to 35:00).

“Burbank Board of Education Meeting”, Burbank City Hall, November 17, Fall, 2022

City Hall’s Board Room. Mentors, parents, students. All eyes turned towards Team 980 Thunderbots as they marched in with their current robot, “Kitty” (named for how the robot “coughed up” hairballs from their poor carpet). Lead mentor David Brinza introduced the team and a personal testimonial about FRC’s benefits from student Yogini Vazirani led to the main event: mentor Robin Dorfman. Robin recounted the strong roots of their team, going back to 2002, giving the board a sense of the 980 perseverance and growth. Her comprehensive business plan (found under “Resources”) detailed what it’d take to bring robotics – either through FLL or FRC – to all Burbank schools (and combined with a succinct robot demonstration) was more than enough to ignite the STEAM (yes, art is engineering and vise versa)-powered fire within the hearts of the board members. The team’s two-pronged method worked beautifully to encourage further enthusiasm, questions, and plans for discussions regarding official robotics implementations throughout Burbank! 

It seems it’s true what they say: if you see lightning, then Thunder isn’t too far behind. The team thanks the generous board members for having them!

— Luci