UPDATE Competition Week #1

And it begins….competition week #1

Student team members, parents, guardians, alumni, and other supporters of TEAM #203:

As we all know, we don’t start competing until week #3, but that doesn’t mean we are not scouting, researching, strategizing, building spare parts, practicing with the prototype and more….  All students should be watching the live streams online that are available of this competitions this weekend and next.  Go to the following website:  http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2015_frcwebcasts.php  to be able to view webcast’s of this week’s competitions going on around the world. 

Some of our students will be traveling to Hatboro-Horsham today (SAT) to scout and observe Week #1 of the competition season. We are looking forward to seeing what this game looks like “in person.”  The rest of the students not on the leadership team may meet Mr. McAlpin today at 9AM to continue to work in the shop (see schedule below).

I think we all realize the importance of FIRST and its impact on our students, coaches, mentors, parents, family members, supporters, alumni and others in our school community and around the world.  We have seen through our 17 year history as a team the impact first hand.  But some people may ask, how relevant is building a robot within a certain time frame, weight and height constraints, and other parameters as an actual “real world” project?  Well it is!  It maybe just a toy to some, and a lot of fun, but there are real world parallels to project management, design constraints, budgets, etc. in the engineering world. 

Dave Lavery, NASA’s Program Executive for Solar System Exploration (isn’t that the best title in the world!), a huge part of FIRST for years, and a FIRST coach and mentor himself, explains how what he does at NASA correlates directly to FIRST Robotics.  He did so very eloquently at the FIRST National Championships last year in St. Louis.  We encourage all of you to take a look at this video of Dave’s speech last year to put this awesome program that our students’ benefit from in perspective.  Check out the video below:  

 

    

Here is this week’s updated information:

Work Schedule this weekend 2/28 and 3/1

Saturday 2/28 9AM - ?

Students who have been asked to report for the scouting mission to Hatboro, please meet Mr. DePrince and Mr. Kammler at the designated time.  All others able to work in the shop, meet Mr. McAlpin at 9AM

Sunday 2/22 

To Be Determined…look for further information

Weekday Work Schedule

We will be still working everyday after school.  All students are encouraged and asked to attend.

Mandatory Parent / Student Meeting

Thank you to all who attended the family meeting last week.  Please see Mr. DePrince for information that you missed if you did not make it.  A lot important info was covered…and many forms were handed out that are very important!

Parent / Family Boosters Raffle

As was discussed at the meeting last week, the boosters are doing a raffle that is on target to raise money for our program.  This is a very important fundraiser, and is being used to support the expenses of the program, each student is expected to sell a minimum of 10 tickets!!!  More tickets are available, and prizes will be awarded to the top student sellers!  Please see Mr. DePrince in school for more tickets or contact Denise Barr.  Also, Denise Barr will send out an e-mail with more information as needed about this fundraiser. 

National Championships

Please stay tuned in the coming days as we complete the selection process for invitations for the Nationals.  Students will be contacted directly and followed up with a letter to the families with details. 

Blog

We have some recent posts to the blog including pictures and video.  As a reminder, the blog address is http://cctsfirst.blogspot.com/. 

As always, please feel free to contact us with any questions!!!!

GO CCTS ROBOTICS!  GO TEAM #203!!  GO FIRST!!!

Mr. DePrince and Mr. McAlpin

FIRST Robotics Advisors / Coaches