Saturday, October 7th was a beautiful and very chilly fall day. Our team, Trial and Error Robotics, set up a booth at the Old Courthouse Museum’s Fall Flea Market to spread awareness about the team and hopefully raise some donations. 

We decorated our booth with gears, an iridescent backdrop, had our new 6-foot cut out of our mascot, and brought two robots with us, last year’s competition bot and Trackbot. The team planned to drive the robots around, but the Trackbot broke a belt, and last year’s competition bot had a software issue. They were minor issues, but we worked through it.

Since our primary goal was to spread awareness about the team, we took turns talking to other people at their booths and handing out flyers. The remainder of the team spoke to people passing by our booth about our program and what we do. A lot of people asked about us making battle bots, and if you want to know the answer, it is NO! 

Some of our team members took the opportunity to interview people around the market about their feelings on STEM/STEAM in our everyday lives. Everyone we talked to said they believe STEAM subjects are an essential part of our lives and that everyone should have some basic understanding of them. When we asked Mrs. Christi Kilroy from the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Army Corps Mississippi Valley Division about her thoughts on STEAM’s importance in education she said, “Valuable. Right!? I don’t think you can describe how important it is because so many professionals require that to be successful.” 

Overall, the event was fun, with live music and delicious food. We had a wonderful time talking to people and showing off our robots, and we were able to spread awareness about our team to the community. The team also managed to get a few donations and a few new potential members. It was a productive experience for the team and hopefully the community as well.