Robots vs. Sportsball
 

IndianaFIRST needs your help. We are entered in a tournament (think NCAA style) that pits nonprofit organizations against each other in a fundraising competition. Every round we are paired against another nonprofit, and whoever scores the most points (raises the most money) moves on to the next round.

We won Round 1 by leveraging donations privately from key volunteers and alumni in IndianaFIRST.

We won Round 2 by publicly encouraging donations and advertising on social media.

We won Rounds 3 and 4 by incentivizing teams to use Brackets for Good to fundraise for their own teams! Any IndianaFIRST FRC team with an associated 501c3 or school financial association, can earn money for their team by indicating in the memo line of the donation which team the donation should go to. Once the Brackets for Good tournament is over, IndianaFIRST will allocate the funds to the proper team. One team in particular has rocked this strategy, raising over $2,500 for themselves so far!

We are now in Round 5. And our opponent is Indiana Sports Corp. We love sports just as much as anyone else, but when it comes to sports or robots, we’ll choose robots and STEM education every time!

We are continuing our incentive for people to donate to a specific IndianaFIRST FRC team, but now we are asking for a more national support base. Round 5 ends this Tuesday at 7:59:59 PM. Round 6 (the last!) ends on Friday, April 1 (not a joke) 7:59:59PM. If we win the entire tournament, IndianaFIRST receives $10,000.

Help us win against sports! Because, as we all know, ALL participants in FIRST can go pro. https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc

To help us out:

1. Click, the PLUS sign by IndianaFIRST
2. Click the Shopping Cart at the top of the page that appears after clicking the PLUS
3. Create an account (or donate using a guest account)
4. Make sure to slide the convenience fee bar down to 3%. (This is the lowest convenience fee in any crowdfunding site, most others take >4.9%. This fee helps to support the nonprofit organization, Brackets for Good).
5. Indicate in the memo-line which Indiana FRC team you want your donation to go to, or leave it blank to support IndianaFIRST directly. Or use it to write funny messages to us.
6. Make your donation. Any amount helps.

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Having worked with the Indiana FIRST crew and several teams within the state, I really hope that the Chief community can help us win this tournament and support FIRST's growth in Indiana. The state has a wealth of students and mentors and this community is like a huge family. Thank you to those who have helped Indiana FIRST get this far and thank you to those who are considering donating to help us reach farther!

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I know in past rounds we were able to make awesome things like this happen! I present Head Ref Jon getting pied:



I'm excited about this round!

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Fun update!

Andy Baker has enthusiastically agreed to to be pied in the face at the Indiana State Championship if we win the entire Brackets for Good tournament.

AndyMark Inc is a valuable sponsor of IndianaFIRST, and we are extremely grateful for all that they do for our teams and us.

https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc

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Heh. I am not sure that I recall being "enthusiastic" about getting pied in the face, but I am up for it.

I hear that we are working on some other incentives also, so stay tuned!

Andy B.

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Do any of those other "incentives" involve kissing pigs?


(context)

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If you were 1/4 as enthusiastic when you agreed to getting pied as you were when showing me the app on your phone and explaining what the bracket thing was about this past weekend in Denver, I can see where that statement came from. I think "you were giddy" would be an appropriate description.

Btw, thanks again for mobilizing your assets and helping to get that field built while I was on the road trying to get there. Seeing the pictures of it built on my phone and being able to tell the people there to go home at 8:30pm was great!

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FAQ #1:

Indy Sports Corp is behind right now, so why should I donate?
On Saturday, the last day of Round 4 of Brackets for Good, Indy Sports Corp brought in multiple large donations in the last 15 minutes of the competition, including single $2,000 and $755 donations. We believe that they have more large donations up their sleeves that they can pull out at any time (most likely last minute) to beat us. We want to be as far ahead of them as absolutely possible.

How does Brackets for Good benefit IndianaFIRST?
For every round that we pass, IndianaFIRST receives more press and networking opportunities, helping us to potentially bring in more sponsorship, resources, mentors, and attention to our program.
In fact, tomorrow we have the opportunity to be on a local news station, WISH TV, to talk about FIRST's impact. Making it to the championship round will bring us even more networking opportunities, which will lead to more ways that we can help teams.

Please help us win Round 5! https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc

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Having donated to help Indiana through the first few rounds, and as you can see stepping up to be pied in the face, I'm definitely invested in the Brackets for Good tournament! Please help out if you can! I personally can't wait to see Carolyn and Andy get pied in the face. I might event make them cheesecakes :ahh:

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Today is the final stretch!

Our friends at Rare Bird made some awesome images to share on social media!



Help us move on to the next round!

https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matches/658

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I looked at the full bracket and it seems likely that the two organizations who will end up in the final are both STEM focused K-12 programs. That's a pretty big feather in the cap of Indiana.

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Fun Fact: TechPoint Foundation is the organization that helped to start IndianaFIRST as a nonprofit. We share many of the same core values, and support each other as much as possible. We hope to compete against them in the final round of Brackets for Good.

FAQ #2:
How much of my donation goes to the team I designate in the memo line?
Brackets for Good takes a 3% + $0.30 service fee (other crowdfunding sites typically take >4.9%). The fee helps the nonprofit Brackets for Good continue to help other nonprofits. All of the money that comes to IndianaFIRST from BFG that is designated for a team will go directly to that team.

If you want to support a specific IndianaFIRST FRC team (and we encourage you to do so!) indicate in the memo line of your donation which team you want your donation to go to. We will allocate the funds at the end of the tournament.

Here is a list of IndianaFIRST teams, using the district ranking points website: http://frc-districtrankings.firstinspires.org/2016/IN

Note that we have TWO Rookie teams, and both are qualified for the State Championship event: 6012 and 5944.

It looks like we are doing fairly well against Indy Sports Corp, but please consider donating (even a small amount) to help keep our lead until the very end. It's going to get exciting this evening starting about 7:45PM.

https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc

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Hahaha cat's out of the bag!

If (that's a big if right now) we win the tournament, many of the IndianaFIRST Board of Director members have also agreed to get pies to the face at our State Championship.

I think Jason Zielke requested sprinkles. I'll bring some other toppings as well. Someone should ship me down some good ole Michigan Sanders Hot Fudge Sauce.

So, for all my FiMitten friends who want to see me looking like an ice cream sundae, you should throw in a few dollars: https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc I saw a couple of my 33 buddies already have. :P

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Tracing the bracket back, I have to ask: What does IndianaFIRST have to bring it against whoever comes out of the other side of the bracket?

From the first round to the round of 8, IndianaFIRST's max score has been 6199 with an average of 3391. TechPoint has a max of 16586 with an average of 8450.75. The Joseph Maley Foundation? Max 12222, average 7899.75, and they have a second five-figure round.

That said, those high scores have also been a result of high scores from their opponents. IndianaFIRST actually holds the highest margin of victory on the board with their 6199-720 shellacking in the last round. If the current scores hold and they reach the finals, it's all gonna come down to who's got what left in the tank!

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Great question! This will be our FAQ #3.

We have a limited amount of sponsorship money that we can use in the last few seconds. We would rather save it for Round 6.

Just like in a robotics competition, each match you need to develop strategy to play with and against the robots on the field. We have strategized every round of Brackets for Good, knowing that we don't want to deplete our donors too early. (See our first post for the breakdown of our strategy so far).

This is why we haven't posted to CD until this current round. We hope that people who can donate small amounts will be willing to throw in today. Every point helps at this point. We really appreciate the $5 donations that came through today from some college students!

If anyone (individual or organization) is willing to donate a larger amount of money, please feel free to DM this account. We'd be happy to help plan out a strategy for when that should be donated.

We believe that Indiana Sports Corp can score a decent amount of points in the last few seconds. We hope to get as far ahead of them as possible before then, in order to save some of our other donations for the last round.

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There is also the option of making your donation a "Buzzer Beater."

What that means is that (up until about the last hour) you can donate the amount that you want to donate, and click the "Buzzer Beater" option. Publically, only half of your donation will be visible, but at 7:45PM, the rest of your donation will go through. Currently we can see that we have 9 Buzzer Beaters pending for 7:45 tonight, but we can't tell which donations those are attached to.

It definitely makes the last 15 minutes intense!

https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc

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UPDATE: Indiana Sports Corp has jumped up past the $1,400 mark. They just brought in a $500 donation, which may be a buzzer beater, doubling it to $1,000.

This means that they are only about $600 behind us. It might seem like a lot, but in this competition, that is a small margin.

There's less than two hours to score points for IndianaFIRST. Our teams would love if you could donate to them. 32 teams are working on coming up with State Championship registration, and they would really appreciate your support if you can afford it. http://frc-districtrankings.firstinspires.org/2016/IN

Make sure to watch the countdown at 7:45! https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc

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With a little under a half hour to go, our opponents have jumped within $320 of us! It's getting tense. https://indianapolis.bfg.org/matchup/indianafirst-inc

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Only thirty minutes left to donate!

Help us show sports:

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Donated! Hoping for the win!

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5 minutes!

Please help if you can!

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Those last few seconds were really tense. Congrats Renee & team!

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Wow. Close win!

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Anyone else see that last 15 seconds or so! I'm 19 and I almost had a heart attack...

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Now that's what I call a buzzer beater! Wow! Congrats!

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Indiana FIRST took it by a narrow margin: :ahh:
6696 to 6620!

Way to go everyone, let's bring home the win!

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HOLY MAGIC SMOKE! That was CLOSE!

With a margin of just $76, IndianaFIRST has made it into the FINAL CHAMPIONSHIP round of Brackets for Good.

Thank you to all who helped us win Round 5 and bring us this far in the competition.

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Over $5,000 pumped into this matchup during the last 20 seconds.

Suddenly, IRI has competition for the most thrilling robotics happening in the state!