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Originally Posted by pwilczynski
Team 236 is having Congressman Rob Simmons come on Wendsday and we are showing him the ropes. Hopefully it will be as successful as your visit.
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Attached is a picture of Congressman Rob Simmons driving our practice robot under the guidance of one of our students. He did pretty well.
The second attachment shows the Congressman doing the Tick Dance with our team. He has a great sense of humor - he concluded a statement he made later in his visit by doing the dance we'd taught him without prompting!
Congressman Simmons was enthusiastic about the FIRST program, and invited our team to visit his office in Washington DC, after we get back from Atlanta. He said that whether we win or lose there, his offer stands to assist us in making a statement from the floor of the House, raising Congressional awareness about FIRST.
The Congressman told the team members that they are "lucky to live in a portion of our country where technology is truly respected and truly applied. For instance, explorer Bob Ballard (who lives in Lyme, CT) is using robots to explore undersea environments, and Electric Boat (in Groton, CT) is currently developing unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to operate in remote areas and hostile environments, where we don't want to put people at risk."
Mr Simmons congratulated the team members for encouraging Palestinian students seeking to participate in FIRST. He "applauded (the students) for reaching out across boundaries."
This comment was in response to our informing him that our team has been focusing on forging relationships with students in Israel, some of whom are coming to compete at the Nationals this year. In addition, one of our mentors served as a judge at the Israeli Regional in March.
We are very excited about the Congressman's offer to speak to the entire House!
TO ALL TEAMS: please send your ideas for what we can include in our presentation to the House to the lead student for our team's Public Relations Committee, Elene Birch (ebirch@region18.org).
We can use your suggestions for other items to include, but we would like to hear your individual stories about how FIRST inspired your students to pursue an education and careers in science and technology.
For example, I can tell you proudly that my son is just finishing his second year at Northeastern University, where he is studying mechanical engineering. Brian got excited about choosing that field of study, and he has the confidence and competence to do well, due to the experiences he had in 5 years of FIRST participation (he joined in 8th grade).