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!

As we mentioned on Day 05, one of the HEX motors had a serious problem. Or this is what we thought at first. Indeed, one of the connector pins was not in place, so a concrete connection with the controller hub was not possible.
The team was very sad to realize we were one HEX motor short. But Dimitris, who is very experienced in Mechanics, figured it out. He would try to repair the motor and document the whole process on camera, so that everyone else facing similar problems will be able to use it as a guide. Is the motor still working? Like new!!!
In addition, aren't you curious to see how a HEX Motor looks from the inside? You can take a peek!

A little bit of programming, HUB in place, battery, gamepad set... GO!!!
Minibot is alive! Not without any problems; one of the HEX motors has a major problem. We may need to get it replaced. :(
​Update coming soon...

Since the most experienced members of our team are away (for now), we decided to take a small step at a time; and that was Minibot. Nuts and bolts, HEX motors and Omniwheels... stand back, here we come!!!

Time to get back to work! What should we do first? Unboxing! Time to open that box and see what's inside!
​A whole new world is opening up in front of us!

A nice day for taking a walk and visiting Acropolis. Of course, Athens is not only famous for history, philosophy, democracy and feats. It is also famous for its food, especially souvlaki!

Today was our first meeting. The 5 out of 9 team members residing in Athens along with coach Tassos Kollias and mentor/technical advisor Dimitris Tsatrafilis had their first getting together. Everyone was very excited.
Certain details about the contest were presented and explained to all participants (team members and parents). In addition, Kostas Vasileiou, President of eduACT, offered us an inspiring speech through Skype.
Apostolis, another team member residing in Xanthi, joined the meeting through Skype, too, and had the chance to introduce himself to the rest of the team.
Seems like a good start! We are all so excited!

Many thanks to Ioannis Sklavakis and eFuture for providing us with the place and IT support for our training sessions.