[CRUSH-all] team activity update

[Bill Bennett]

Hi team
The team has continued to be active this summer, with some increase in numbers attending lately. We're happy to see that, but want to pass along to the rest of the team what's been going on lately.

The activity that should be highest priority is getting ready for Robolympics, though I'm behind on what I have to do for that. We have decided to drop the carnival part of the event, so what remains is approximately what we did last year: presentations, exhibition games and demos, and food concession. It's only a little over a month away, so we need to get very focused on this right away.

We're also working on a mailing that should go out to all SSA high school students in the next few days, that provides information about CRUSH and invitation to participate. It will include a letter, printed info packet, and a DVD of video and photos. 

In the shop, the exciting recent event is installing a new welder and starting to learn how to use it. It's a Miller Syncrowave 200, mainly a TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) aka GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) system. It works beautifully, making steel welds easily, very quiet, no mess or smoke. Aluminum is a little noisier and slightly messier, and needs a lot more skill to control, but still very nice, and we'll get the hang of it. Bill Witzigman from Praxair spent several hours with us on Saturday. Everyone at the meeting (about 10 of us) got a chance to try to use it with his supervision. It was great to get this startup lesson from him, and he offered to do it again after we all get some experience with the equipment and want some second round instruction. 

More great new, this year we'll have two SSA teachers on the team. Mr Calik will continue with the team for a second year, and we've been joined by Mr Sayin this year. Welcome Mr Sayin! It's great to have additional faculty presence on the team.

Lastly, an update about me. Two things are going to impact my participation this year. It's all good news but the team will need to work out how to continue to thrive under this shift. The first one is a short term impact: my oldest son Tobin is getting married next week, and activities around that event will take me out of the CRUSH loop for a while. I'll be unavailable starting Thursday August 17 and won't be back in to the shop until Tuesday August 29. So we'll need to plan what happens during that time and who will head it up. 

The second impact is longer term. Many of you already know I am planning a career change next summer, leaving IBM after 30 years and going into teaching. I feel like I'm almost a teacher already, having worked with students, faculty, and school admininstration for four years of CRUSH/FIRST Robotics. So I'm looking forward to formalizing this and becoming a "real" teacher. Meanwhile, it's going to take some work. I continue with full time responsibilities at IBM this year, and in addition, taking a full time load at UA to get my teaching credentials. It will keep me very busy (that might be an understatement), and right now, I can't predict how much will be left for fun stuff like building robots. I want to stay as engaged as possible, and I don't know how much that will be, but for sure, less that what has become usual for me (i.e. there all the time). So over the coming weeks, I'll be working with the other adult leadership to plan how to manage the team with "less Bill", and also working with students to step into broader leadership roles. It's an opportunity for growth for the whole team. 

So that's my summary. Exciting stuff is happening on Team CRUSH, and it will be a great year. I look forward to seeing more of you all in coming weeks. 

Bill
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