[23234] in APO-L
[APO-L] NASA/VCU FIRST Robotics Volunteers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek J. Cashman)
Mon Dec 2 17:58:34 2002
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 17:56:33 -0500
Reply-To: "Derek J. Cashman" <derek.cashman@vcu.edu>
From: "Derek J. Cashman" <derek.cashman@vcu.edu>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Here's an exciting service opportunity for anyone that may be in the
Richmond, Va. area sometime around March 6-8, 2003. The FIRST Robotics
Competition is actually a larger event, there's also regional
competition's during March 6-8 in St. Louis, MO, and Sacramento, CA, as
well as other regional competitions throughout March and early April in
other parts of the country.
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, nationwide competition
that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design
problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a
life-changing, career-molding experience=97and a lot of fun. In 2003 the
competition will reach more than 20,000 students on over 800 teams in 24
competitions.
VCU hosts one of the high school regional events, involving 62 teams
meeting at VCU=92s Siegel Center (athletic arena) with real robots; by
that I mean full-sized machines, almost what you see on BattleBots,
except that they don=92t kill each other. It=92s a huge event, and =
it=92s
scheduled for March 6-8, 2002 at VCU.
This is an excellent opportunity for service, because the event is
basically staffed entirely of volunteers (I think there's a small
handful - like 8-10 - of actual paid staff in the FIRST office, and the
other 95% of the manpower is volunteer). More information on the event
can be found online at http://www.usfirst.org/ ... so if you're
interested in helping out, and you're not in the Richmond area, that's
where to look.
For those of you in the Richmond area, or will be around March 6-8, 2003
(this is right around spring break for a lot of schools), Pattie Cook
(the FIRST Regional Director for Virginia) is looking fairly early for
volunteers to help staff the event. She needs people in just about every
task from refereeing to robot inspection to manning the administration
table to crowd control and more!! The FIRST organization is mainly set
up to handle individual volunteers, instead of a group or organization
helping out. Because it=92s a 3 day event, the logistics make it much
easier to maintain individuals serving individual shifts, instead of a
group of 10 people showing up at a given time, say 8am (and 3 of those
people have to go by 12 noon, and two more at 2pm, etc.). So to make it
easier on them, if you=92re interested in volunteering for the event (it
can be on any of the three days; March 6-8), send an email to Pattie
Cook (robotsfirst@aol.com) letting her know you=92re interested. You can
send me an email as well, and I=92ll forward your contact info directly =
to
Pattie. The actual text of Pattie=92s message is below my signature.
There=92s also a launch event at the VCU school of engineering (the big
building on the corner of Main & Belvedere) on Saturday, January 4,
2003, so they=92ll probably need a few people to help staff that as =
well.
This is the date when all the teams participating in the Robotics
Competition meet to get their parts to assemble their robots, as well as
learn the actual tasks that their robots will have to accomplish during
the actual competition.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, if you volunteer for the event, they
provide free parking in the W. Broad St. Deck (ok, that=92s not that
exciting for VCU students), and free meals (that would be breakfast,
lunch AND dinner) =96 and the food is actually pretty good, too; not =
cheap
stuff. And you get a free t-shirt as well! ;-)
That=92s all for now! Cheers!
Derek J. Cashman (derek.cashman@vcu.edu)
Graduate Student, Department of Medicinal Chemistry
MCV Campus of Virginia Commonwealth University=20
"A Drug is any substance which, when injected into a rat, produces a
publishable, scientific paper."=20
-----Original Message-----
From: Robotsfirst@aol.com [mailto:Robotsfirst@aol.com]=20
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 3:42 PM
Subject: NASA/VCU FIRST Robotics Volunteers
Hello everyone,
Just a quick note to say we are starting to work on the logistics of the
upcoming FIRST Competition. This includes one of the most important
aspects of the event-
VOLUNTEERS!=A0 you....
Mark your calendars for March 6-8th, 2003
VCU Siegel Center, Richmond, VA.
We would like to invite you to join us again to make this Competition a
great success.
Please let me know if you are interested in participating should your
schedule permit
Please let me know if there is another email address which you would
prefer we use to contact you...
Please let me know if you have any friends, associates or family who you
would like to participate in the upcoming Competition.
After I hear from you about your interest in participating, I will be
back in touch and will be working with you to fine tune the days, times
and tasks.
Thanks again
Pattie Cook
FIRST Regional Director
804 784-4898
