2014 Championship Conference
 

Description
FIRST is excited to announce that we are accepting presentation proposals for the eleventh annual FIRST Championship Conference. We are looking for 45-minute workshops on topics of interest to FIRST Robotics (FRC), FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams, coaches, mentors, students, and prospective leaders. You may present individually or as part of a group. FIRST will provide a laptop and projector for each presentation. Any additional equipment will be the presenter’s responsibility to provide.

We encourage presentations in all technical and non-technical areas of FIRST. Please submit proposals for any topic that is relevant to current and/or future FLL, FTC, and FRC teams and coaches. We have selected a few themes this year, to help get your creative thoughts flowing! The 2014 Robotics Conference will highlight Innovation and Women in STEM. We will certainly accept proposals outside these two themes.

Selected proposals will presented at the conference in St. Louis on April 23rd - 24th. Please note that travel and accommodations will not be provided by FIRST.


Proposals
If you are interested in submitting a proposal for a 45-minute presentation in St. Louis, please submit your idea on or before Monday, February 17th by clicking here to fill out a short application.


Past Presentations
This list shows some examples of topics that teams have found useful. Please don’t limit your proposal to the topics on this list. We welcome any innovative ideas that enlighten and engage FIRST participants and inspire future leaders in science and technology!

• Robot design tools and strategies (design software, programming languages)
• How to lead a sustainable FIRST team
• Marketing tips and advice for teams (fundraising, budgeting, finding sponsors)
• Preparing for college (applications, essays, interviews, scholarships)
• Team organization and leadership
• Progression within FIRST programs (example: transitioning from FLL to FTC)
• How to recruit and retain volunteers

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Has anyone heard anything more about this? According to the website schedule was supposed to been posted March 19. http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nd-conferences

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Yeah, I haven't heard back.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I just got a call from FIRST headquarters.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I received an email this afternoon.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

So does that mean that something will be posted soon?

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I got a voicemail today and plan to call back tomorrow.
It looks like my presentation proposal on grant writing/sustainability was accepted.
Looks like itll be a busy Wed for me as I attend the HOF meeting/pin ceremony and then the presentation.

Last time we had about 200 people. Hopefully we get more this time.:)

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

The "Real-Time Software in FRC Robotics" presentation is on April 23rd at 5PM in room 230. We will be jamming a lot of info into 45 minutes!

Abstract:

This presentation answers common questions from students and CD members. Topics include pre-emptive priority-based scheduling, using semaphores and messages for synchronization and mutual exclusion, and the structure of the operating system, libraries and application tasks running on a FRC robot. Time allowing, we'll review the structure of templates provided by WPI, review analysis techniques and recommended practices.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Looking forward to it!

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

"Mentors: How to Hire 'Em, How to Fire 'Em" will be presented Thursday, April 24, 2014, at 11:00 AM in Room 230. It's a hot topic that I get many requests for assistance with as a FIRST Senior Mentor. Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I'll be following Kathie with:

Corporate Volunteers (and why you want to engage them)

Abstract: FIRST events are a great match for engaging corporate volunteers. Let's talk about some best practices for recruitment, coordination and recognition while meeting the unique needs of corporate volunteers for the following: Jr.FLL Expos, FLL and FTC qualifiers and championships, FRC Districts and Regional's, kickoffs and workshops.
The targeted audience for this session is anyone who needs to recruit and coordinate FIRST volunteers. Most of the hints are for event volunteers, but could also be adapted for mentors.

Jenny Beatty works for Volunteer Maryland - an AmeriCorps program administered through the Governor's Office. (www.volunteermaryland.org). She is serving with STEMaction Inc. (www.stemaction.org) to create a sustainable infrastructure to recruit and manage event volunteers for all 4 FIRST programs in Maryland. She is co-founder of NEMO (Non-Engineering Mentor Organization) www.firstnemo.org.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

How did you hear? We have heard nothing about our submissions.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Carol, I think they are catching up. I bugged them via email because of the date clearly posted on the website. Others have gotten phone calls.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

4-H Exploding Bacon 1902 will be doing the Big Bacon Theory of Image and Marketing this year on the 24th.

Hope to see you there.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Do you have the email address? We need to start getting panelists so I want to bug them too.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I will send by pm.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Team 359 Sustainability/Grant Writing conference is confirmed at 4pm on Wed April 23rd.
We plan to give away "Hawaii and Team 359 prizes" such as MacNut chocolates, similar at regionals with our trivia and raffle giveaways we did the past 2 weeks in our pit.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I found the schedule.

http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default... e%203.21.pdf

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I have to admit I am disappointed that our conference, a career panel discussion with women in STEM careers, was not selected this year. We have held this for 4 years straight and it has been very popular. I noticed that FIRST is holding their own, similar panel discussion. Perhaps they felt it was duplicated.


Thanks for all of you who have participated with this in the past, either as a panelist or attendee.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I'm actually relieved that our talk on timing and strategy in FRC was not accepted. Having heard nothing from FIRST we hadn't done the organization to prep for the talk. Now, with 3.5 weeks until the event I don't think we could pull it off effectively.

I just wish they'd let us know earlier. (Or at all)

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

The abstracts for the conference presentations will be posted to the FIRST website soon. Please share with your teams if you will be in St. Louis.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I'll repeat what I said last year, it would be great if all the conference sessions could be recorded and linked on usfirst.org

So many non-attending teams would benefit from all the information.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

My understanding is they will be. I opted out because I will put on NEMO site.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Thanks. I was hoping to get to the NEMO meeting, but my volunteer assignment is going to keep me very busy.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

There is an updated schedule and abstracts posted.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nd-conferences

I am presenting on Thursday morning (back-fill for a cancelled presentation) on Continuous Improvement. The info and abstract is below and it is targeted to teams at all levels of "performance" and experience.

8:00—8:45 AM, Room 230
Continuous Improvement: How to Continue to Learn & Improve in the
FIRST Year | Chris Fultz, FRC Team 0234

Seeking "continuous improvement" doesn't have to mean you did anything wrong. A focus on continuous improvement means you want to take your team performance and make it better. This could mean changing a design, changing behavior, learning a new skill or performing specialized testing to address a robotic myth. This presentation will cover how to identify areas for improvement, how to identify a capability gap, how to document your work and will end with some examples of small projects and larger projects based on "one factor at a time" methodology.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Do you have to register to attend the presentations or can you just show up?

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

http://www3.usfirst.org/roboticsprog...nd-conferences

FIRST Championship Conferences Registration

The FIRST Championship Conferences are free of charge and open to all. First access to seats will be given to individuals that have completed registration. Please note that completing registration greatly increases the likelihood that you will be able to enter the presentation you select. However, it does not guarantee that you will have a seat reserved. All seats will be open 5 minutes prior to the scheduled start of a session. Please be sure to arrive on time!

Click here to access the FIRST Championship Conferences Registration.
Note: Registration is not available for the Chairman's Chat panel discussion in the Ferrara Theater.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Are there any plans to record any of the conferences? I will not be in St. Louis this year and many of these sound very interesting.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Yes, some of the presentations will be recorded and available after the championships.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Currently do you know around when and on what website(s) we'll be able to view the conference recordings?

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

The videos will be posted to WPI’s site after Championship. The link to the site will be posted on the FIRST Conferences page (http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...d-conferences).

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

Hello everyone,
I just had a chance to finish our presentation for our sustainability workshop.
You wont be disappointed!!:)

I just created a handout packet that has one of our $60k 2 year STEM grant actual writeup that we will be sharing and giving out to all that attend.

You can also win a cool Team 359 Gift basket, Team shirts (they cost us $25 each to make), and Macadamia Nut Chocolates. Each one has 18 pieces! We will be raffling those.

-Glenn

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I promised attendees at the "Real-Time Software in FRC Robotics" session that I would post the presentation file on CD. Please don't copy and distribute the file - just tell people where to find the link.

If you have any questions please PM me.

Enjoy.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I have posted my session slides on the NEMO website, Resources page:
"Mentors - How to Hire 'Em, How to Fire 'Em" - http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/mentors...o-fire-em.pptx

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

My session on working with Corporate Volunteers on NEMO resources page. Double click box in upper right of each slide to see my commentary.

http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/corpora...age-themV4.pdf

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I've uploaded my presentation, entitled HOW TO FILM YOUR ROBOT, here: (clicky)

How To Film Your Robot focuses on creating a build vlog series that is marketed towards the non-STEM community.

I've also uploaded a 9-page paper covering a more technical approach to filmmaking. The tips and tricks in this paper should be useful to anyone interested in shooting video and lifting their abilities to the next level.

Re: 2014 Championship Conference
 

I would really like to share some of the conferences I got the chance to attend with some of the members of my team, does anyone know when the videos will be posted online or where they are if any of them have already been posted?