2023-24 Outreach

 GRAFFITI debuted our parade-bot in the Greendale July 4th parade. Check out the dual catapults to toss candy to the crowd! 

At the J&J Contractors Summer Bash, we hosted an interactive event for kids to teach and assist them in driving our robot. 

We helped the Greendale Lions Club with set-up, take down, and food service at the Family Fourth Fest and Greendale Village Days. Our team also created a basket toss game and manned carnival games at the Village Days Midway.

This season, GRAFFITI mentored all five Greendale School District FLL teams: 47701 Master Minds, 53617 Coding Chaos, 53915 The Brainy Bunch, 54240 The Brainy Bunch, and 63563 LEGO Legends. 

GRAFFITI helped troubleshoot coding/engineering issues, gave feedback on projects, and helped FLL teams prepare for their competitions. We hope to see some of the 8th graders join GRAFFITI next year!

GRAFFITI has shared robotics and STEM with 1700 elementary students at 18 schools over three years. We read a robotics related picture book, showed a video we created about GRAFFITI and FIRST, and answered student questions. 

Last year, we read to 24 Greendale classrooms and plan to visit K-2nd grade classrooms again this year!

 We always have a fun time volunteering at the Sensory-Friendly Family Events put on by the Greendale Schools Special Education Advisory Team (SEAT). 

At this event, Greendale students and families can visit different learning stations like Quiet, Music, Movement, and Creativity (that includes LEGO building, which we know something about from FIRST LEGO League!).

 We were on the committee to plan and host the FIRST Wisconsin State Advocacy Day in 2023 and 2024. We learned about advocacy and building relationships and met with congressional leaders to advocate for continued and increased funding for STEM programs across the state.

We were inspired to create a quiet area at FRC tournaments for anyone who needs a break from the loud atmosphere. We met with Special Education staff at our school to help us start this initiative and this space has fun calming activities including 3D printed fidgets, LED lamps, origami, puzzles, and virtual calming room activities.  GRAFFITI has provided the Quiet Room at WI FRC Regional tournaments since 2021-22.

 We designed and assembled LEGO "blind build" kits for each of the Greendale Schools FIRST LEGO League teams. This is a fun activity where two groups sit back-to-back and one group walks the other through building an identical LEGO creation based on their verbal instructions without looking at it!