Originally Posted by gibbyrawr (Post 723839)

Pantherbots......
How do you mentor 40 teams with a team of 22 students?
We still dont get it.
:confused:

Originally Posted by Pjohn1959 (Post 723333)

We would like to thank team 1477 for having the confidence to pick us in the 1st round. You guys were solid all weekend. Team 57 (thanks Kevin), had an incredible hybrid mode. This gave us a great start to each of our matches.
This has been an dream year with a Chairmans, and now a regional robot win, we can't wait to go to Atlanta and see what is next. :D

Originally Posted by ADHDassassin (Post 727103)

It was our pleasure to pick team Kaos as our first pick and we couldn't have been more pleased with the results of picking team 57 as well. We thought that we picked the best two sleeper 'bots out there. Our scouts told us who to pick and who would have though that an alliance with robots that seeded 3rd, 14th, and 31st, could beat an alliance with #1 and #2 :)

Originally Posted by gibbyrawr (Post 723839)

Pantherbots......
How do you mentor 40 teams with a team of 22 students?
We still dont get it.
:confused:

Originally Posted by richardmcc2

A little information about 1108:

* 97% of team alumni went to college
* 50% of their finances came from their community
* They only have 22 students on their team, and have still managed to accomplish incredible things
* They started the No Robot Left Behind (NRLB) program three years ago and their team members offer technical support and parts to all of the teams at the regional.
* They obtained a $2 million grant from the Ewing Marrion Kauffman Foundation! I wish we could find something like that.... They used the money to start 40 new FRC teams in the Kansas City area. Each team was given around $15,000 in their first year, $10,000 in the second year, $6000 in the third year, and then they were expected to have enough sustainability to find their own funding
* They held workshops for these 40 teams, not only technical, but also a practice Chairman's Award day, and gave all of these teams feedback on their presentations.
* They are trying to implement Project Lead the Way at their school
* They left the judges with a copy of their chairman's essay, a business card, and all of the posters that they used for the presentation.

Other helpful tidbits:

* 11 teams submitted entries at Lone Star this year (418, 499, 1108, 2158, 118, 922, and a few others)
* The Chairman's Award winner is chosen based on your essay submission February 19th, the 10 minute interview, and whatever additional documents you give them during the interview. The judges that walk around the pits are only judging the other awards, not Chairman's.
* Biggest advice for the essay - Be more specific. Instead of "We mentored 2 teams," say how you did things, include names of schools, quantify hours of help provided and number of people helping.
* It is important to distinguish between what was done this year, and what was done last year.
* Presenters should be absolutely comfortable presenting - get students from speech and debate.
* Don't rush through the presentation - make sure to focus and emphasize your key points.

Originally Posted by lynca (Post 729211)

Panther Robotics obtained a 2.5 Million Grant to help setup those 40 teams at the KC Regional , you can see the list of teams sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. They outlined their progress for those teams in the wrap up Chairman's after the Regional.