Heres one of the letters sent to all state reps and school board members;
One person can change the world; one person can inspire the world to change itself. Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST, is challenging people from around that world to become that one person.
FIRST is a not-for-profit, educational organization that was founded to inspire and excite young people about science and technology by bringing professional mentors and students together for international robotic competitions. Each January, a new challenge is unveiled. Six weeks later, after dreaming, designing, constructing and testing a 120-pound robot, the team says its good byes to its robot before shipping it off to their first competition.
FIRST has a life-changing impact for students. As a dedicated student member of FIRST, I know that every student participating in the program walks away with immense amounts of knowledge that will serve him or her for his or her entire life. I have learned about cooperation, compromise, organization, and self-confidence. This program is creating and nurturing our future engineers, architects, mathematicians, and inventors.
I am part of Team 1902, Exploding Bacon, located in Orlando, Florida. Our team members come from: Winter Park High School, Lake Brantley High, University High, Glenridge Middle School, and Lake Highland Preparatory School. Our primary sponsor is Siemens. University of Central Florida provides a majority of our mentors. Last year was our rookie season -- in just seven weeks we were able to form and register our team; then design and build our robot using a drill press and basic tools in a collegiate mentor’s garage. We competed at the Florida Regional Competition at the UCF and won the Rookie All-Star Award. At the Lonestar Regional in Houston, Texas, our team made it to the semi-finals and won several awards including: Rookie Inspiration, BP Gracious Professionalism and Highest Rookie Seed. At the Championship Event in Atlanta, our team paired with two others to become division finalists, almost unheard of for a rookie team.
This year our team has expanded even more, and not only are we participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition, but we have started a FIRST VEX Team. Exploding Bacon members have also started two FIRST LEGO League teams at Glenridge Middle School: The Nano Nerds and Bacon Bits. We are reaching out to our community with monthly science demonstrations at Cheney Elementary School, a school where 75% of the students are in the free-and-reduced meal program.
We would like to invite you to attend the Florida Regional Competition at University of Central Florida, March 8-10th as a guest of Team 1902 Exploding Bacon. We look forward to introducing you to our team, showing you around the pits, giving you an Exploding Bacon T-shirt and teaching you our team cheer: OINK OINK BOOM. I hope you can see for yourself what an inspiring program this is and how it will directly benefit our students and our state. For more information about our team and our program please visit
www.team1902.com
Sincerely,
Catherine Coleman
Student President
Team 1902
Heres the response from Ms. Cadle a school board rep.
Good afternoon,
I am writing in regards to the invitation Mrs. Cadle received for the Robotics event taking place on March 8-10. Mrs. Cadle would like to attend; can you please forward me the time it will be begin & confirm the location.
Thank you,