Happy New Year and what a busy year it will be! With the fantastic support of the Australian Government, we have already purchased our flights. We were awarded a grant through the Inspiring Australia - Science Engagement Programme which has made it possible for the entire team to travel to Houston.

There is still a long way to go though and we started looking for fundraising opportunities. We found a contact for Bunnings and rang to see if we could do a BBQ. We had to work fast as they had a vacancy, the next day! I don't know how they did it, but the Voigt's and Moloney's organised everything and we had our first fundraiser. Thank you to the team at Bunnings Gawler for their support and offer of further assistance to the team.

Luke, Sam and David (and Michelle, Sean and John) worked tirelessly all day, not only selling drinks and sausages, but demonstrating the robot and promoting FIRST as well. Crispy, our National's robot, is fantastic at playing catch and is great for Slips practice! He generated a great deal of interest with many families taking FIRST brochures for their schools.

At the largest FIRST Tech Challenge tournament yet held in Australia, the Trinity BaCoNeers were declared overall champions for 2016/17 and have won the right to take on the world in Houston, Texas at the World Championships.

The team not only built a great robot, but demonstrated true community leadership in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) in South Australia. This year, it was the 600 hours of community outreach that really impressed the judges. The team promote STEM through the Adelaide Maker Faire, Science Alive and by mentoring teams in Adelaide and around the world.

The BaCoNeers robot was impressive too and in fact was one of twins. Team co-captain, Adam Watson, described the build process and explained that by working with the twins, “The team were able to make continuous, incremental improvements that led to the development of our undefeated competition robot, Crispy.” Smokey stayed in Adelaide this time, but he will be the robot we work on next, putting in place all the things we learned in Sydney.

The Trinity BaCoNeers were honoured to recieve a "Maker of Merit" Award for their demonstration at the Adelaide Maker's Faire, held this weekend at Tonsley Park.

The team used the day to finish building their twin robots, Smokey and Crispy. Team members were assigned to one of two teams, Red and Blue (of course) and given one of the twins to compete in the first ever, FIRST Tech Challenge Scrimmage in South Australia.

Great thanks to Mobile Science Education for donating the field and game pieces, which made the event possible.