Phase#3, final week of practice and a final move. We have left Illioupoli behind and moved to 2nd Primary School of Kalyvia.
We are setting up the training field, making our last modifications to GRoot_bot and we are ready to go!!!
Apostolos is still in Xanthi, but he will be with us on Friday.

Many thank yous to Mathisis Team Member Mr Avraam Triantafyllidis and, also, to the school Principal for letting us use the school building for our practice!

Our little star wanted to shoot some "professional" pictures... What a show-off he is... but can anyone say no?

We are printing a few badges. They will be available at our pit. You are welcome to come over, meet us and get yours!

Today our team visited Epsilon TV to be interviewed by Spyros Charitatos and Georgia Halkia during their morning TV show. What a great way to celebrate Dimitra's and Apostolis' Birthday!!!

Link to the video: #xypnamemazi

As we have already posted, we faced a major problem with one of the HEX motors. Dimitris fixed that problem in a very professional way and we also recorded the repair process on video. Those videos were immediately shared with FIRST and REV and we would like to thank them for their prompt response. The motor, although it is professionaly repaired, is considered "modified" and it is not approved for the competition.
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REV is very happy to provide us with a new "unmodified" HEX motor as a replacement in Mexico City.

Thank you REV! Kath and Christina, thank you so much for your support! Looking forward to meeting you soon!

After a week of hard and extensive work, our robot begins to take form... Well, now he should find him a name...
What's it gonna be?

Well, July is here and this new week finds us at Illioupoli. We had to change location because the available space was not enough for practicing - and GRoot_bot grows day by day.
In addition, coach Tassos has traveled to Malta to participate in STEAM Summer School (STEAM Communication), but the team must keep working on the robot.

So, today is the big day! Apostolis is in Athens with his team for the WRO contest on Sunday, so he came to meet the rest of the team in person for the first time! Everyone is very anxious to know the three persons that are going to travel to Mexico City.
Of course, this doesn't change anything. We will all keep on working with the same intensity. We are a TEAM!!!
And the ones who travel to Mexico are:

Apostolis, George and Michael!!! Congratulations to all three of you!!! 

After a whole... 5 minutes of cheer and conratulations, we got back to work. No time to spare...

End of phase#1 is a very significant point for our team. A lot of things are about to change. Next week we will move to a new place, leaving behind the warm welcoming space that has hosted us for the last two weeks.
We will like to thank from the deep of our hearts Ioannis Sklavakis and his organization, eFuture, for kindly hosting our team efforts at eFuture Lab in Palaio Faliro and also for doing the preparations for hosting us for the whole next month at eFuture Lab in Illioupoli. He is a very kind and generous friend, a big supporter of the greek national robotics team, the FIRST LEGO League and the FLL Jr.
You can have a glimpse of his work in the following video. Giannis, thank you so much for everything!!!

Goodbye Minibot. Nice meeting you...
So, Minibot is gone. We have to move on... Tomorrow is the big day: since our team has been awarded the FIRST grant for participating in FGC 2018, only 3 of us may travel along with coach Tassos. The final selection will be announced tomorrow.
Until then, there are things to be done. We have our basic sketches and coach Dimitris printed a solar panel mock up in order to be ready for practice. In our team we have a rule: we do not have any parts to spare. Thus, if we need something, we don't have to use the robot kit parts, we can print it!

No practice today. The team visited the National War Museum to attend Konstantinos Daskalakis session on Artificial Intelligence. Really mesmerizing!!!

Minibot is fine for a start, but it is time for the real deal! The team met to start putting our initial ideas on paper. Apostolis was there, too (through Skype, of course). We are looking forward to meet him on Friday, when we will be arriving in Athens for the WRO finals.
George and Vasilis worked with Michael and Dimitra on Blockly - a good revision on how to set up the motors and create an initial program for the Minibot. Dimitris solved any issue concerning misunderstandings on programming with Blockly and setting Minibot ready to rumble. Thank you Minibot, your work is done!
The team had 30 minutes to discuss on the strategy and make a decision that will help us build our robot. Good work guys! Tomorrow is the big day: we will draw the initial blueprints and start building our contest robot! Yeah!