Week 4 and counting!

Continue checking the FIRST site for team updates EVERY Tuesday and Friday. You will NOT receive emails when they are posted. They are usually posted by 10:30 am ET. Since my last email blast, there have been updates concerning robot game rules, safety implications of certain designs, and use of LEDs. Who knows what will be in Tuesday's update!

Update your TIMS information and begin collecting the required judge information. Don't let the administrative deadlines get lost in the excitement of building the robot!

Monitor the team Q & A for rule clarifications. Remember, the primary contact has access to submit questions and can find the access information on the home page of the TIMS systems. Anyone can view the Q & A.

Begin planning the logistics for attending your regionoal. Check the events page on the FIRST website for details (including a link to your regional's event site. The Midwest Regional site is www.MidwestFIRST.org. Check the Midwest First site for the order form for pre-ordering lunches. Details for ordering lunches are included at the bottom of the form. If you are not attending the Midwest Regional, you should visit the website for your event.

Since Last email blast:

Thursday, January 24th was national Thank Your Mentor Day! I hope each of you took out time to give your mentors a special THANK YOU for their hard work and sacrifice. If you haven't yet, now is a good time to do so. In case no one took the time to thank YOU, from the bottom of my heart, please know that what you do really matters and that it WILL payoff (even if your robot is still just a pile of parts?

What happens when you are mentored by a great attention getter like Winnovation? You learn how to get attention yourself! Friday, January 25th, the Roboteers (2481) of Tremont HS in Tremont, presented a public exhibition to engage the Tremont elementary school 4th graders. See press coverage here.

Just another example of an Illinois team that is out there actively engaging the public! Who else has some good news to share?

Mentoring Partnerships

Wow! Such great mentoring work is being done in Illinois that I would like to highlight the mentoring efforts of some of our local teams. The best stories are the ones that come from the teams who benefit from receiving mentoring, so I will only focus on those sources. This week, teams sent the following information about the help they've RECEIVED:

Team 2381 (Ark of St Sabina) wants to thank Team 1850 (ACE Tech) for the use of their machine shop this week and for the guidance given while there. (This is in addition to the safety workshop 1850 gave last week!) Team 2381's mentor reports that the "kids and engineers from the ACE Tech team were very helpful and welcoming." Keep up the good work ACE Tech!

Team 2433 (Austin) wants to acknowledge the help they received from Team 2151 (Proviso Math & Science Academy) before the start of the season. PMSA came to their school to provide tips and guidance on how to get their rookie team started.

Team 2136 (IMF) wants to acknowledge the help they received from Team 1739 (Chicago Knights) while learning to use pneumatics. The IMF mentor states "the procedures and techniques demonstrated were very helpful." Chicago Knights, thanks for sharing!

Rookie Team (Number, Short Name).................Mentored by (Team Number, Short Name)

2338, Oswego..............................2022, IMSA
2358, Lake Zurich.........................2115, Mundelein
2364, Oregon..............................1625, Winnovation
2381, Ark of St Sabina....................1739, Chicago Knights
2432, Hales Franciscan....................1739, Chicago Knights
2433, Austin Polytech.....................1755, Julian
2462, Marine Military.....................2041, Clemente
2481, Tremont.............................1736, Peoria
2490, Chicago Hope........................1739, Chicago Knights
2533, Juarez HS...........................0000, THIS SHOULD BE YOU!

Note: A Mentoring team provides assistance and guidance to a less experienced team; a partner team provides assistance and guidance to a team with similar levels of experience. In both cases, the ideal arrangement benefits both parties, but the most experienced team should take the lead in providing support. The ultimate goal is to produce a higher quality team on both sides and a true sense of community in Illinois.

Resources and Training Opportunities

Need access to a machine shop in Chicago?

The Mechanicats from ACE Tech (1850) welcomes any team needing access to a machine shop to contact them for assistance. They are located on Chicago's south side. Contact jscharon@acetechnical.org for details.

Are you offering a free training opportunity that is open to ALL Illinois teams? If so, please share the information and it will be posted here!

Week 2-3

This Week

Check www.usfirst.org for team updates EVERY Tuesday and Friday. You will NOT receive emails when they are posted. They are usually posted by 10:30 am ET. Since kickoff, there have already been updates concerning the competition manual, AutoDesk, and RoboCoaching!

Update your TIMS information and begin collecting the required judge information. Don't let the administrative deadlines get lost in the excitement of building the robot!

Don't forget to forward the names of your team members who will be attending the Chicagoland eWeek Awards Dinner to RoboticsLady@gmail.com by Friday, January 25th. Full payment is due January 31st. At this event, the FIRST Tech Challenge team Robo Gophers from Batavia and the FIRST Robotics Competition team Mechanicats from Chicago will be honored along with winners of several other local engineering competitions. Won't you plan to come out and show your support? Attached is a flyer for the event in case you want to invite your team sponsors as well!

The 2008 Kit of Parts is rendered in Autodesk Inventor and available through Autodesk FIRSTbase at: http://firstbasefrc.autodesk.com/?nd=kitofparts.

Monitor the team Q & A for rule clarifications. Remember, the primary contact has access to submit questions and can find the access information on the home page of the TIMS system.

Begin planning the logistics for attending your regionoal. Check the events page on the FIRST website for details (including a link to your regional's event site. The Midwest Regionals site is www.MidwestFIRST.org.

Since Last email blast:

Saturday, January 22nd, the Mechnicats (1850) of ACE Tech HS in Chicago presented free, open workshop on Safety and Proper Tool Usage. This student led workshop included Safety, First Aid, and hands-on tool usage instruction.

Saturday, January 15th, the Chicago Knights (1739) of Agape Werks in Chicago presented a free, open workshop on Pneumatics. This student led, hands-on workshop included how to plan for, wire, and plumb pneumatics. It also covered pros and cons of usage.

Both sessions were attended by rookie and veteran teams who benefitted from the instruction. Kudos to all teams who are out there actively mentoring, supporting, and encouraging other teams! Who else has some good news to share?

Mentoring Partnerships

Rookie Team (Number, Short Name).................Mentored by (Team Number, Short Name)

2338, Oswego.........................2022, IMSA
2358, Lake Zurich....................2115, Mundelein
2364, Oregon.........................1625, Winnovation
2381, Ark of St Sabina...............1739, Chicago Knights
2432, Hales Franciscan...............1739, Chicago Knights
2433, Austin Polytech................1755, Julian
2462, Marine Military................2041, Clemente
2481, Tremont........................1736, Peoria
2490, Chicago Hope...................1739, Chicago Knights
2533, Juarez HS......................0000, THIS SHOULD BE YOU!
Note: A Mentoring team provides assistance and guidance to a less experienced team; a partner team provides assistance and guidance to a team with similar levels of experience. In both cases, the ideal arrangement benefits both parties, but the most experienced team should take the lead in providing support. The ultimate goal is to produce a higher quality team on both sides and a true sense of community in Illinois.

Next week I'll publish an updated list with corrections (I always get at least one wrong) AND team partnerships/collaborations. Make sure your team gets listed here!

Resources and Training Opportunities

Are you offering a free training opportunity that is open to ALL Illinois teams? If so, please share the information and it will be posted here!

Jackie Moore
Senior Mentor, Illinois
773.817.3621 (temp # - 773.817.3612 )
773.846.3612
NEW NUMBER: 312.567.8853 (good weekday afternoons when cell phone doesn't work!)

Week 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your creative engines!

This weekend's kickoff lights have signalled the start of another FRC competition season with an appropriately named game: Overdrive! This week as you take in all that has happened and prepare for what is ahead, take some time to remember that we do this to inspire our young people and to show this just how awesome professionals can be.

This week

1. Make sure you complete your inventories NOW! Don't miss the deadline for reporting missing parts
2. Don't lose your FEDEX Shipping certificate. IT WILL NOT BE REPLACED!
3. Keep your TIMS data accurate. CPS employees make certain you are using your NEW CPS email account or you will miss critical information that you are STILL responsible for knowing.
4. If your team is providing team mentoring to another team, you should be in contact with them this week to help ensure they are off to a good start.
5. If your team is RECEIVING mentoring support, share with us what they have done with and for you (do not report on what is planned, but on what has already happened). This will help others understand ways they can help other teams. This is also one way to publicly acknowledge their help amongst their peers. Sorry mentoring teams, but this information can come only from the team receiving the help
6. If your team is NOT receiving mentoring help from a local team, let me know so I can put you in touch with a local team who is looking to mentor another team

Note: A Mentoring team provides assistance and guidance to a lesser experienced team; a partner team provides assistance and guidance to a team with similar levels of experience. In both cases, the ideal arrangement benefits both parties, but the most experienced team should take the lead in providing support. The ultimate goal is to produce a higher quality team on both sides and a true sense of community in Illinois.

Funding Issues / Concerns

1. Attached is the grant application I mentioned during the kickoff. Please forward it to the members of your team to see if they qualify.
2. By now all teams should have sent your team (or school) W-9 to FIRST. If anyone donates to FIRST on behalf of your team, you will not receive those funds without a current W-9 on file.

Resources and Training Opportunities

1. I have received requests for guidance on determining tool needs. For those who have not yet obtained your tools, attached is a compilation of suggested tools compiled by Steve Cremer (an east coast Senior Mentor). This compilation is the result of querying many east coast teams (young and veteran) about their toolset. As each team is unique in their goals and structure, this list is offered as a guide only.
2. If you are aware of, or are hosting any training events open to local teams, please let me know and I'll include it in my weekly emails (or forwarded itsooner if necessary) to. As of now, I am aware of one such event:

Basic Pneumatics Workshop: 1/12/2007 @ 2:00pm
Chicago Knights (1739) will be presenting a student led (adult assisted) workshop on how to use pneumatics for students THIS SATURDAY at 2:00pm. This event is planned to be held in their workshop on the campus of IIT (3424 S State), but if enough people are interested, it may be moved to ACE Tech HS (5410 S State). Teams should bring 2-4 students and one adult, their pneumatic components (or the VEX pneumatic kit) for some hands on demonstrations. There is no fee to attend this event, but reservations are required. Contact the team at info@ChicagoKnights1739.org to register.

Communication
These weekly emails are sent to the email address of record (as of 12/15/2007) for the primary contact for each registered team. I use a private email group list that I maintain manually. If you change your contact information in TIMS, I may not necessarily know it. Please let me know if you want other email addresses added to my personal distribution list. You are free to forward these emails on to anyone you choose. However, since they are intended for the adult mentors on FRC teams, you may want to preview the information first for appropriateness for the audience you send it.

Please be aware that I am not allowed to share team contact information without explicit consent. However, if a team is willing to share their information, YOU have access to it via TIMS. When you log in, look in the upper right hand corner and you will see a link to search for Team Contacts. Hopefully this will help increase direct communication amongst teams.

Now let's kick our energy levels into OVERDRIVE and build better youth as they learn how to build better robots!