Conquest Engineering has been a huge help to us this year. When we first approached them, they offered to give us a tour of their metal shop. We were eager to see the company in action, so we scheduled the date and planned to give them a demo on the same day.
This demo was supposed to be small – just a brief overview of what we do and a little promotion for FIRST. We discovered when we got there that Conquest had invited some friends to see our demo (employees from the Lake Johanna Fire Department and FabEx, another company nearby). Our short presentation included information about FIRST, FTC, and our accomplishments last season. We also ran Stacy – there were some technical difficulties, but they seemed interested nonetheless.
After our demo, the guests went back to their own shops and Conquest invited us into their break room (“C’mon, you guys have to see this cake!”). We were greeted with the sight of cookies and a decorated cake with the words “Good luck Ponytail Posse”. This was awesome and we’re very thankful to Conquest for being a super cool sponsor.
Once we were full of cake, the owner of Conquest brought us round back to where all the magic happens. We got to take an up-close look at their huge laser-cutting machine, shearer, and other large-scale machines. When we came to the welding area, we saw that the man working there had a collection of stickers. He was very nice and added our sticker to his collection.
After the tour, the owner decided to bring us next door to FabEx, who she has worked closely with and known for a long time. This machine shop was larger and louder. It was very cool to see the difference between the two shops and the specialization of each. The tours were a lot of fun and we look forward to working with Conquest in the upcoming season!
