Troy Daze

Each September, the Troy Daze Fall Festival attracts nearly 100,000 people to celebrate the community. An array of activities offers fun for children and adults alike. There are opportunities to discover something new each day. Troy Daze is home to an amazing collection of amusement rides. In this wonderful 4-day event, people also become aware of the countless organizations that are working behind the scenes in the city of Troy.

FIRST Team 226, the Hammerheads is one such organization that lives and grows in our community. The growing awareness of our organization is directly proportional to the growing interest in science and technology in our community. On their way to the fun and games, people stop by at a tent manned to us. In our tent, we put on short demonstrations of our past robots abilities which attract a substantial amount of people. We spark curiosity in our fellow citizens, and this same curiosity propels them to get involved in the club itself, make generous contributions to the team's finances, or even simply enjoy the unprecedented experiences our team has to offer. The children are simply spellbound by the small-scale robots, the NXT robots; they clap with joy when observing small robots complete relatively easy tasks. In fact, Troy Daze is one of several major sources of FIRST recruits. Because of the exposure to science and technology radiated by the sharks in our team, children develop interest and join a junior robotics program known as First LEGO League. FLL serves as the appetizer in the FIRST program which is soon followed by FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition.

Visitors to the event are not the only ones who get to have fun. Sharkie and his fellow Hammerheads also enjoy the fair. Sharkie is quite a popular attraction. Accompanied by a fellow Hammerheads, Sharkie swims around Troy Daze interacting with the community. Everyone loves to take pictures with Sharkie especially because he is so friendly; to Sharkie, fish are friends not food. He also was given free rides by the company that organizes Troy Daze. He has good relations with the public; people always ask Sharkie where he's from and what he does.