Our team of more than 70 students, faculty advisors and mentors recently participated in the Washington DC Regional Competition. At this competition the team’s hard work and determination exhibited throughout the six weeks prior clearly paid off. The team fought its way to the #2 seed position, won the Regional Finalist Award, won the Engineering Inspiration Award, and one of our team members won the Dean’s List Award. As a result, we have earned an invitation to participate in the FIRST International Championship competition in St. Louis at the end of April. To fund our participation in the Championship, we need to raise nearly $20,000 in the next three weeks.
The team is in need of individual and corporate sponsors to fund the travel costs associated with attending this world competition. Sponsoring our team is a great way to get positive name recognition and encourage the development of future engineers, scientists and technology experts in the local community.
If you are interested in helping the team reach our fundraising goal please feel free to contact me via email at matthew.james.lee703@gmail.com or at (703)606-7459. I would be happy to discuss with you any question you have about our team in general or specifically sponsorships.
Volunteers:
Please meet at Herndon High School behind the drama room at 11:30 AM on Saturday October 27.
For those driving, please remember to bring your drivers license, the security at the gate will ask for a photo ID to verify your name with the list I will provide them.
For those riding, please bring a photo ID with you. Security may ask for it and we don’t want to have to drive you back home!
Parking is free, if you let me know you are driving, but you must come in through the RT. 50 gate and park in the North end.
The team will be in the robotic zone located on the second floor mezzanine.
The FTC Competition Scheduled for 1/21/2012 has been delayed 2 hours. Doors will open at 9 AM.
Fairfax County Public Schools has cancelled all activities for tomorrow 1/21/2012. Therefore tomorrow’s meeting is cancelled. Stay tuned to additional emails regarding a possible Sunday afternoon meeting. Otherwise our next meeting will be on Monday 1/23/2012.
The FTC Competition is still on! An announcement will be made by 5:30 tomorrow morning with an updated status.
Today we continued to work on CDR Presentations. We will hold CDR presentations next meeting, this Saturday from 9-4. Team members helping out with the FTC Competition Concession Sales get double hours for that day.
Today we continued to work on CDR Presentations. The actual presentation of ideas will take place this Saturday at 9 AM. Make sure your subgroup is ready to present then. Please check Wherley’s email from tonight to find the templates for the powerpoint and the BOM.
Our next meeting will be this Thursday from 7-10. You can show up as early as 6 to catch up on work and get extra hours.
Today we finished our discussion about the general robot design. CDR will be next Saturday so each of the subteams need to have their presentation done by then. We also assigned subteams today so make sure that you talk to Dave ASAP if you missed today’s meeting. Our next meeting is tomorrow from 6-10. Be ready to get to work.
P.S. Special Thanks to Domino’s, Tortilla Factory, and Jimmy Johns for their food donations tonight. Our dinner tonight couldn’t have been a success without their generosity! Thank You!
Congrats guys we’ve finally made it. The trip is tomorrow!
Be there by 5:30… in the morning… or else we’ll just have to leave without you!
One more week!!! Things have sure come a long way since the beginning of build season and we are almost there. Please keep in mind that several subgroups are in need of some help. Make sure that if you are ever able to offer an extra hand, you talk with a sub team captain and ask if they need anything.
Additionally, don’t forget about your hours!!! Without 60% of your hours you are not a member, and without 80% you cannot attend the trips. An email was sent out today with an updated version of everyone’s hours, so make sure there are no errors in your records.
Things are really starting to come together now, but we’re going to need the entire team working as hard as they can to be successful at the competitions.
As discussed in several meetings, Autodesk has allowed our team access to several student editions of there programs. These editions are fully functional and have proven to be quite useful throughout build season. Anyone who does not have access to these programs (especially 3ds MAX and AutoCAD Inventor Professional Suite 2011) should definitely take advantage of this opportunity now.
To get a copy of these programs you will have to first create a student account with Autodesk. To do that please do not click anything on their website, but rather follow this link. This will verify that you are a member of this team, which will eliminate one of the steps of the process.
http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=or&id=3117&ic=e802fQH6VC
From there just fill out the form with your information and complete the account setup.
Then you can go to: http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center and pick through plenty of valuable programs and download as you please, but remember you can only download two of the same program so pick wisely which computers you want the programs on.
If you have any questions leave a comment or just shoot an email to Matt
"From small changes come big differences." [εΔ]