oh this is wonderful! Thank you all so much! You have no idea how much this means to me and how much this will help my team!
Here I'll just put the letter in here...that way for the Spanish one if somebody does it before another it doesn't get accidentally done twice...
To the Parents:
First allow me to apologize for not getting this letter to you sooner. My name is Katy Levinson, a computer science major at WPI, and I am mentoring FIRST (For Innovation and Recognition of Science and Technology;
www.usfirst.org) FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) robotics team #1725 in which your daughter has been enrolled.
FIRST is a robotics-based program to teach young people about technology.
FRC (
www.usfirst.org/robotics) is an international competitive robotics league with over 1000 teams from five countries. Thirty-three regionals will be held and teams that do well enough will compete in the International Championships in Atlanta Georgia. Each year a game challenge is released. You can find this year’s challenge at robotics.nasa.gov/events/2006_kickoff.php, click ‘Aim High Animation’. Teams have six weeks to design and build a robot to play the game. This hands-on approach allows students to gain experience in problem solving; project management; building and mechanical concepts; electrical wiring and testing; and program design, development, writing, and testing. The structure of a team also gives experience working with a group, marketing and public relations experience, and a chance to work with professionals in a friendly sports-like environment. Experience in FIRST also reinforces and brings to life many subjects the girls are learning in school, including geometry, algebra, physics and calculus.
FIRST FRC is a widely respected program. It is sponsored by many respectable entities such as NASA, FedEx, Delphi, Autodesk, Microsoft, TYCO Electronics, Fisher-Price, and Texas Instruments. Over six million dollars are given every year in college scholarships to students on FIRST teams.
Team 1725 is an all-girls team with girls coming from all over Worcester. It is an attempt to break the stereotypes of the traditionally male-dominated engineering field.
For questions pertaining to the relationship between the schools and the team I would recommend you contact Dennis Ferrante, the Director of Business and Community Partnerships at Worcester public schools. His office phone is ####NUMBER.
This is my fifth year in FIRST and while this is the first time I have mentored a FIRST FRC team I have mentored four FIRST FLL teams (FIRST Lego League, a middle school equivalent). As mentor I am absolutely dedicated to this team. I have taken some time off from my work-study job in order to make more time for the team and I truly want to see each girl on the team succeed.
I understand many of you have been concerned about the large number of practices our team has been holding each week. If you would like to monitor your daughter’s attendance, we keep a sign in sheet for practices at the build space. We have also started running a number of online meetings through instant messengers. You are always welcome to contact me to see if a meeting really does exist or if your daughter is just not getting off the computer. Although the hours have decreased since ship the team still stands as a very large time commitment, and if your daughter has time conflicts or needs to leave early, come late, or miss a few hours in the middle of practice that is alright. I also firmly believe academics come first. A program that furthers your daughter’s chances in the future is useless or flatly counterproductive if it comes at a cost to her grades. Please tell me if your daughter’s grades begin falling either during FRC season or the normal year. I would love to help her if the need arises. I just graduated high school last year so all the material is fresh in my mind.
On February 21st FedEx took the robot away to a storage location outside of team control. This is done on every team in FRC to ensure all teams have the exact same amount of time to work on the robot. This is why the number of practices has decreased on our team. I am sorry the current practice times are rather haphazard. The purpose of them is primarily to practice our Chairman's presentation, work on team spirit materials for competition, pack for competition and test out potential gripping materials for our rollers which we will install at competition (our current rollers are temporary and use tape which is illegal).
Our team is going to attend the Boston regional from 3/23/06-3/25/06. We are still working out if we are going to be staying in Boston or if the team and another three teams for Worcester will be renting a bus to drive us up and back each day. Since our team has less than 10 active students currently it is imperative that every student attends regionals each day. There is a lot of work to be done and we are going to be very short hands already. I will be sending permission slips home soon (they may be in English. I'm sorry about this.) /** (Spanish copy only) If you would like more information about the regional feel free to contact Mikell Taylor of the Boston Regional Planning Committee at ##EMAIL. He speaks Spanish. */
The first day of regionals (Thursday) is a day when final changes are made to the robot, the students get to practice with the robot under real conditions, and scouting data is collected on other teams. Friday is the first day of the ranked matches. Teams will be randomly grouped for each match into ‘alliances’ of three teams. Alliances will compete against other alliances, however, alliances change every match, so one team may be competing against their former allies at any time. Several awards are also given out on Friday. On Saturday morning the last of the ranking matches finish and on Saturday afternoon the top eight teams draft two more teams apiece into a permanent alliance. These eight permanent alliances enter elimination rounds and the winning alliance, along with the winner of the Chairman’s Award, are the four regional winners. The rest of the awards are also given out on Saturday. The entire event is open to the public and there is no admission fee. I invite any parent friend or family member with the time to come and cheer us on. Our team colors are pink and blue and our team name is I².
My cell phone is the best way to reach me. The number is ####NUMBER. Please feel free to call at any time of the day or night with any questions; I would be thrilled to meet with you.
Sincerely,
Katy Levinson