INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Twenty-seven Indiana high schools or postsecondary institutions are receiving grants totaling $114,500 that will be used to fund teams competing in the FIRST Robotics program, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development announced today. more…
Wow! That’s every (currently registered) FRC team in the state of Indiana! Each team got somewhere between $2500 and $7000!
49 other states should take notice and do likewise.
Nice! Hopefully this will happen in virginia.
DWD (Department of Workforce Development) has been very good to us. We have gotten grants in the past for FIRST and our summer robotics camp.
Lets here it for Indiana!
I noticed that five IN teams (393, 1018, 1501, 1529, 2277) list Indiana Dept. of Workforce Development as a sponsor. Will the other 22 teams be doing that, too?
I’ll definitely talk to my lead mentor about that…
Each time has different methods when naming their sponsors. My team, Cyber Blue 234 may not put the name in our team sponsor name, but they have a large presence and logo on our website. Our main/high paying sponsors are reserved for only those which contribute at a certain level. We hope that this is only the beginning of the level of support that the IDWD contributes to FIRST teams in the state. There are some exciting new things happening now thanks to the new IndianaFIRSTPresident, Dan Ward, as well as the success that the state has seen from the FIRST program.
We are committed to IndianaFIRST!
I wanted to write in and thank Andy Baker and IndianaFIRST for poking and prodding at us in the summer time and the whole entire Technokats team for this. Thanks for arranging a demo at the Indiana State House this summer, all of us in Indiana would not of had this opportunity. The Tecknokats and IndianaFIRST are so gracious to all of our teams in Indiana. I’d also like to thank the other Indiana teams that came to the demo, I know this list is not complete but I know that all of us had a part in “networking” with the politicians and it was a great time.
Thank you team 45
Thank you team 447
Thank you team 1720
There was a couple of more teams, but I can’t remember.
The State of Michigan Department of Education set aside $150,000 this year which served to cover registration fees for 25 Michigan teams. We hope they will do even more next year as it was a very successful effort.
Thanks to our partnership with the Department of Workforce Development, we were able to travel to a 2nd regional (West Michigan) last year, as well as compete at the BMR this year. We certainly would not have had that experience were it not for our friends at the DWD. They are working with the DOE, specifically Technology Education, to really raise state government awareness for FIRST and everything it does. I believe that because of their ongoing support, there will be even more Indiana teams to be feared in the coming years.
Chris, this is kind, but this definitely was not led by me. I helped a bit, but it is and has been a team effort. (I am afraid to list all of the names, since I may leave people out too, but here it goes…)
Scott Ritchie and Libby Ritchie are probably the instigators behind all of this, as they created and fostered the relationship with Terri Schultz at the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD)a few years ago. Libby was hooked in with Governor O’Bannon’s office and the 2016 effort. Scott has ties with DWD through his teaching job at Perry Meridian. When the IRI came to Indianapolis in 2002, Scott and Libby were able to get these state government folks to attend this summer event. Also, Libby coordinated demos from many Indiana teams at the Indiana State Fair, which involved the 2016 project and possibly some ties into DWD.
Terri Schultz at DWD and Mike Fitzgerald at the Indiana Dept. of Ed. are both on the state PLTW steering committee (as am I), and they see the same folks doing PLTW as FIRST (Steve Florence 461, Randy Decker 829, Chris Byam 45, Dave Smith 868, Jim Langfelt 135, Stephen Thompson 1000, Jeff Smith 1024, Mike Taylor 1529 (aka: boiler), etc.). Terri and Mike see all of these crazy FIRSTers continuing to promote FIRST and justify that the state should put forth money to help FIRST programs, so they started listening.
At the same time that this FIRST team - Indiana government relationship was happening (2002,3,4), the IndianaFIRST organization shows that the teams know how to work together to promote FIRST in the state. This cooperation between teams showed that we’re not going away and we can work together. The work and leadership of David Kelly (234), Amanda Morrison (now coordinating FVC at FIRST), Stu Bloom (1018), Josh Hambright (1272), Holly Perdan (formerly with 135), and Cis Noble (71) helped get IndianaFIRST off the ground. Currently, Dan Ward (45) is the president, Randy Decker (829) is the VP, Brant Bowen (234 alum., Purdue FIRST) is the secretary, and Cheryl LeBlanc (1720) is the Treasurer while Ryan Dognaux (234 alum, Purdue FIRST) is the webmaster.
Also, Dan Ward (45) at Ivy Tech Community College and Marci Cochran (447) in Anderson landed a NSF grant through their work on the RoboEducators effort. This has turned into a large independent Vex education and competition effort within the state. Dan coordinated a demo last spring at the Indiana State House, where many administrators got to see 4-5 of these Indiana teams in action.
At the same time, Chris Fultz (234), Bill Beatty (71), and other business leaders set examples that FIRST is a partnership effort that a company can be excited about. The state administrators like to see this and again are encouraged to support FIRST.
Also… there is the fact that the Boilermaker Regional is a strong competition with good leadership from the Purdue FIRST programs with Amy Przybylinski (Delphi engineer, team 45) and Greg McCoy (Purdue FIRST, 45 alum) as the regional coordinators. This is an event that was championed by Carolyn Percifield (Purdue Admin.), and the planning committee involves many more people. The state administrators have attended and supported this event, with our state DOE superintendent attending in 2005 and other DOE and DWD folks attending both year. Terri Schultz will be a speaker at the VIP luncheon this year.
DWD gave some grants during the last 2 years to Indiana FIRST teams, but not the size of what they are doing for 2007. DWD asked Scott Ritchie and I to come in to talk with them about how best they can support the FIRST program, and we gave them our opinions from the teams’ perspective. Rich Kressly gave me some information regarding PA and DE state curriculums and how they are tied in and affected by FIRST (thanks, Rich) and I passed that info along to DWD at this meeting. This info helped fuel the fire.
With all of this happening, and through the encouragement of Terri Schultz at the DWD, Commissioner Andrew Penca approved this funding for Indiana teams. Like most grants, the money must be spent on limited, approved things (tools, hardware, etc.).
This is definitely a great thing… it is a result of many people working together for the past 6 years and shows what can happen when a group pulls together and depends on each other. I am sure that I have left out many names of folks who did similar things that I either didn’t know about or have forgotten. Thanks for everyone who helped make this happen and mega-thanks to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development for this outstanding support. I’m just happy to be a small part of this large effort.
Andy Baker
Mechanical Engineer, Delphi Corporation
President, AndyMark, Inc.
Lead Engineer, TechnoKats Robotics Team
Co-founder and Co-organizer, IRI
Founder and past president, IndianaFIRST
wooooo hoooooo
rock on
SUPERIOR teamwork in the true alliance fashion.
Guess I’ll have to revise that old FIRST adage…
[strike]Andy Baker[/strike] Indiana as a whole is the reason that FIRST raised the bar.
Andy, that was an amazing explanation. I had no idea. Thank you very much for letting us all know. We are very appreciative.