**FIRST EMAIL**/FIRST Camp Guide

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Teams -

FIRST Place is excited to announce a new opportunity for teams to promote FIRST programs while raising money for your team: the FIRST Camp Guide.

FIRST Place developed this guide based on the camps run at our facility in Manchester, NH. The guide provides information on administration, training for camp counselors, and daily plans for the camp instructor. Teams can use these materials as a guide to run a camp but need to adapt them to fit their own requirements, schedule and resource facility. There is no charge for these materials.

Summer, after-school and vacation technology & robotics camps are relatively low cost to run and in high demand, so they can be a great fundraiser for teams based on the fees charged. On top of that, it is a great way to expose more people in your area to the FIRST philosophy and build a strong FIRST presence in your community by growing FIRST teams in all programs.

If you are interested in receiving a copy a copy of the FIRST Camp Guide for use with your team, visit
http://www.usfirst.org/community/firstplace/content.aspx?id=9174 (http://www.usfirst.org/community/firstplace/content.aspx?id=9174)

To request your camp be listed on our "Camps Run by Teams" page, follow the link located on the above page.

Go Teams!

[Akash Rastogi]

This is a great resource for new or even some older teams. We'll hopefully get even more kids involved in our well established summer program.

[KathieK]

A reminder: if you have openings still in your summer camp programs, send me (kathiek -at- firstnemo - dot - org) the details and I will include it in the NEMO listing of off-season events and camps (http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/2008_Calendar.pdf).

[dk5sm5luigi]

Team 1735 is running one of these camps in Worcester, MA. More information about this camp can be found at http://www.wpi.edu/+JRC or if you have questions feel free to PM me.

[Libby K]

I'm really happy to see this. I volunteer at FIRST Place's Science Day Camps and I often get asked questions about how camps there are run, usually by a member of a team that is considering starting a camp on their own. So, thanks, FIRST, for giving me fewer PMs to respond to! :P

And now, a very tiny plug. If you know any 10-13 year olds that live in the Manchester area, or who would be willing to travel up for a week, there is still room in FIRST's Zany Zoobots camp, held on July 14-18. I'm not sure of any availability for the other camps, but you can check them out here, at http://usfirst.org/community/firstplace/content.aspx?id=8162

(EDIT: it seems that the camps that are full have "(waitlist)" next to the name, and those that still have room do not. I can read, I swear!)

I hope that teams find some useful information in this. Summer camps are a great way to recruit new, younger members to FLL (and possibly FTC/FRC, depending on the camp you do) and get FIRST into your community.

:)

[Macdaddy549]

We're running 3 summer camps. This is our second year. Last year it ran great.
First we have a VEX robotics camp. I've created 2 games. One we played on Wednesday and the other we played on Friday.
The second week we have an Engineering camp. The students get an intro to Inventor for the first two days. On Wednesday we go to the Discovery Museum in Acton Ma. Thursday we have the campers go to a day in the electronics lab. On Friday we do a plasma cutting and welding taught buy one of our Mentors who owns a metal fab company.
The third week we run a Lego camp.
Each camper pays $200 and they receive a week of fun, excitment and a DevilDawgs team 549 t-shirt. We have lots of kids returning from last year so we must be doing something right.
One recommendation I have is to get plenty of help. We have several engineers that work with our team and most team members work the camps. I offer the team members a $125 credit put towards our travel fees.
ANY QUESTIONS SEND AN E-MAIL BLAST TO TEAM549@HOTMAIL.COM

[lynca]

I'm surpirsed FIRST would make this announcement when they have no summer camps listed on the FIRST database.

http://www.usfirst.org/community/firstplace/content.aspx?id=9198

I can understand FIRST wants to find out more info on the various summer camps available,

But I'm a little shocked they would publish this link with "no events listed "