Demo Team Needed
 

I would like to hold a Robotics Demo in the Owego area to get the locals excited about FIRST. Most I am sure have not even heard FIRST let alone seen one these machines or a competition, so I feel this would be a great way to "spread the word" as it were. The goal really isn't to help promote my specific team that I am trying to create, but rather FIRST as a whole letting people know hey, we exist.

Jan 12th: Architecture Awareness Day
This year, Tioga Middle School is holding some activites to promote Engineering. I'm not exactly sure on the details but I believe last year they built Spaghetti Bridges. Lockheed Martin will be involved and some Execs may even be present. To my knowledge, Tioga Middle School does not have a Lego League team. While I realise this is during a Thursday in the middle of build season, I would apreachate if someone could attend. Personally, I plan on taking the day off and at the least pass out some flyers.

Feb 22nd: National Engineers Week
Every year Lockheed Martin Owego invites local Eight Graders from a variety of schools to come to the site. At this time I'm not sure of the exact details but I beleive there will be many activities and I feel this would be an excellent time to Demo a Robot. Since these are Eight Graders, there is the potential for them to get really excited and want to create a team at their schools for the 07 season. Again, my thinking is this would be a Get to Know FIRST kind of thing. Since it is at Lockheed Martin, then the employees also would get to see what we are up too!

The first date is about a month out, and I realise people are getting excited both about the holidays and the upcoming season. However if any fokes here would be willing and able to hold a demo in Owego, I'd enjoy the conversation ether here, by PM or on AIM. I also plan to email the five "local teams" listed in Mark McLeod's post to see what they think in the next few days. Have a happy Thanksgiving and I hope to hear back from someone.

Regards, Jeff Martinez

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Did you contact Binghamton University at all? (Just as a way to even get engineering students to help out). I talked to the chairman of mechanical engineering (James Pitarresi I think) while I was there for an open house, he seemed like a very proactive person in technology. You should try dropping him an email (probably available on the binghamton website). If contacting him turns into a dead end you could try contacting one of the engineering clubs on campus (ASME perhaps?) - see if they have an interest.

I know from just walking around that they have a pretty good machine shop there (which is at least always a problem for our team in particular - getting parts made).

Good luck!

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Jeff:

MOE, Team 365 started out with FIRST (as stated earlier) as an Explorer Post 7 years ago. I was the Post Advisor for the post. Due to various reasons, after our second season in FIRST, we decided to form our own non-profit corporation, which is about two years old.

Send me a message and I would be happy to discuss our history with you. My work e-mail is John.A.Larock@usa.dupont.com.

Good luck!

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Jeff:

If you would like a FREE "Team in a Box" DVD just go to www.team341.com Click on the banner and then scroll down to order.

We made this DVD to help Rookie teams, but we are finding that teams are also using this disk to explain the FIRST experience to groups that are unfamiliar with FIRST.

Anyway its free so you can't lose.

Best of luck

Al Ostrow
Team 341

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Things continue to go well in Owego. I’ve developed a sixteen page power point presentation on FIRST Robotics and the common team organization to be used as a business proposal. Last week I had a meeting with my manager to discuss the proposal and he’s given me my support. Honestly, I think he is a bit surprised from such initiative from a new hire just out of college, but hey I want to see this happen. Next step is a presentation in front of Communications and Human Resources, which will be scheduled some time after New Years. Then there will be another presentation in front of Frank Meyers, the Site President, and hopefully after that we will be off and running.

On the High School front, working through the Explorer Post has fallen through. I do not believe the group has the ambition or drive to become a FIRST Robotics team. They are very good at what they do, and I just do not want to push too hard for a project they are nether prepared nor excited to dive head into. For instance, the teams have now spent four meetings trying to get their Lego Mindstorms to travel an elliptical black track. By no means do I mean to knock them for they are truly a good group of people with the students both excited and inspired by engineering. Combined with the possible logistics of working with six schools, having the Explorer Post as their own existing team just doesn’t feel doable. So my thinking is to have the Explorer Post and a Robotics team as two separate entities both supported by Lockheed Martin Owego. We may or may not be working together during the six weeks having people involved with both groups and will have to wait to see how things progress.

At Owego Free Academy, progress is going quite well. I’ve met with the Tech Teacher mentioned before. He thinks its very “doable” with he and the high school are now on board. In fact we are planning a kickoff meeting in the computer lab to watch the Manchester web cast. Who to invite is a bit up in the air right now, since clearly we will not be participating and are more than a year out. My thinking is to have a meeting with folks interested in starting a team, discuss the proposal and how we want to organize while watching the broadcast. The only real question is financing. Owego is in a budget crisis and will likely not be able to provide any revenue. That’s perfectly fine in my mind with Lockheed Martin and possibly other local companies helping out, but I was wondering if anyone here knew of any NY State aid such as BOCES who might be able to help out.

Thanks to everyone here for their support and input. I got the Team in a Box this weekend, you guys did a great job and I’ll be passing it around so people can get a better idea about the competition. Further more I’ve now spoken with two leaders of other Lockheed Martin teams, with one being an hour and half away near Clarks Summit PA, and it’s been really helpful knowing how the company works with them. Have a great holiday and wish everyone the best of luck next season.

Oh, and does anyone know how to Edit posts? I would like to update the front page so it better reflects where we are at and what needs we are looking for.

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Jeff:

Sounds like you are really on the move! Thanks for the kind words about Team in a Box. we hope it continues to be one of many tools you will use to organize your team. As you have already found out, finding a good mentor close to your location is your most important step.

Best of luck!!

Al Ostrow
Team 341

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Great Job Jeff!

Keep in mind that the Regional in Rochester is only a few hours away and a day trip is possible during the competition. Seeing is believing especially when you're at an event.

If Team 191 X-CATS can help out please let me know!

Ellery

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Good News. I had twenty minute presentation on tuesday with the Communications Director and one of the VPs with Lockheed Martin Owego about FIRST Robotics. He thinks its a great program and that Owego should support a team. The next step is a conversation with the head of Tech Ops (our engineering division) and then with the Site President. Right now I couldn't be happier, but I have some homework.

They would like as much statistical information as possible about the effectiveness of the program. If any one does student tracking, it could be really helpful. How many students go to college, what they major, do they graduate, who they then work for and then compare it to broader student population. I think the idea is if this could be a recruitment tool, is there a trail out there linking them from A to B. Also, Owego is Big on diversity: race, gender, income etc. They do not want to seem supporting a program that only caters to rich white males. Now we all know this is not the case (and from memory can give some good examples), but they want to see Hard Numbers. Coming from Clarkson or looking at our team pictures..... thats not exactly easy.

So, yeah. Any statistics you could give about your team would be awsome.

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Great work Jeff,

We've been keeping track of our kids from the beginning, I'll see what I can dig up for you and try to update the presentations we used to provide.

Send me an email and we can communicate directly.

Ellery.wong @xerox.com

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Jeff, last week, the principal of a high school in Johnson City and someone from BAE came by our team's meeting to see how we operated and whether it would be feasible for them to start a team next year. Binghamton's pretty much in the same place and we welcome you to ask for any help that you need and to possibly coordinate with Johnson City. Are you by any chance affiliated with the people that gave us a visit?

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

The hunt continues. This Friday, Chuck 84 will be visiting Lockheed Martin Owego as a part of National Engineering Week. 150 middle school students and teachers from around the county will be exposed to Robotics for the first time. Each of these groups along with their Lockheed tour guides will be ours for twenty five minutes to do as we please. Granted will not be allowed to drive around the facilities but we have a full hanger bay to act as our play ground.

Mwahahahahaha
*cough* cough*
Oh, sorry. You know what they say about power.....

Any way, I'm starting to get real excited. I'll let you fokes know how it turns out. Now here's hoping last years robot is fully up and working.
:yikes:

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Friday was an overwhelming success. I want to thank the other mentors of Chuck 84 who I am very much now in their debt. The robot was present despite the blizzard the day before and I managed to get a laptop so I could finally show people some videos.

Seven groups each from a different school of about fifteen students, their teacher and two Lockheed employees filed through during the day. We started with an intro to FIRST, showed them this year's game, had them brainstorm the robot they would want to make, then drove the robot around for a little bit. In each group there was few students who really got into it and usually a guide who walked up to get a closer look of the robot. It will be interesting to see if any one makes it to the regional this weekend, which of course we highly advertised.

So to sum up the results:
100 inspired students who never heard of FIRST.
Lockheed Martin Owego's initial involvement with FIRST Robotics.
Bout 25 employees and one upper level manager got see the robot first hand.

The Waverly teacher, also an engineer involved at the high school level, is very much excited. Currently their seniors are building a battle bot who I think next time will be shifted to FIRST. I suspect Waverly will ether be joining Chuck next year or starting their own team.

Owego Free Academy is extremely on board. There have been several informal meetings and we have their full support including from Project Lead the Way. The middle school teacher not only knew about FIRST but felt, in his own words, "this is going to happen."

Wow. All we need now is Lockheed endorsement then off and running. Even if they don't, I think next month I'm going to hold a info meeting session at the high school, try to capture some of this energy. With or without Lockheed, things are definitely coming together. Till next time, and looking forward to seeing people at Rochester.

Best Regards,
Jeff "Martinez" Martinez

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

Jeff:

It was great to hear how well things went. Chuck has an awesome team. We have worked with them at many off-season events. We always enjoy their friendship in the pits and partnership on the field.

If you need anything else from team 341 including more copies of Team in a Box, just let us know.

Take care!

Al Ostrow

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

One of the ways that companys sometimes become sponsors:

1. you start a team at a local HS.

2. students join the team, parents of the student become interested and want to help

3. the parents work for companies like Lockheed, IBM, BAE, SUNY Binghamton....

4. the parents get their companies involved.


Its sort of a backwards way of doing things, but whatever gets you there in the end is all good.

Re: Need Help Creating a Binghamton Robotics Team
 

A copy of the FIRST Robotics Owego Program Proposal is now listed in the Chief Delphi White Papers. Pictures have been removed in order to minimize file size. Any and all critiques are welcomed. Next meeting with management is at noon on Wednesday, so wish me luck!

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1805