[UCGL_Guy]

Oklahoma Kickoff A Huge Success

Ok I'm going blatantly toot our own horn a little here. With the daunting task of mentoring 25 rookie teams for this year Our kickoff team formed a plan of action to get these teams and any of the other teams wanting to participate off to a great start. First a couple of numbers, we had 40 teams in attendance and over 850 total people there. We filled our venue to capacity! A special thanks goes to Oklahoma State University and Dean Karl Reid of the College of Engineering, Architecture, and Technology for hosting this event and supplying lunch for everyone, (we got everyone through our lines to be fed in around 6 minutes!). Every team attending also received a special gift thanks to the graciousness of one of our state sponsors - a 12volt Dewalt drill, a set of Ball tip allen wrenches and a dial calipers. These were put to use later in the afternoon where we planned and executed a plan to help and guide all teams who wanted on how to put together the basic kitbot. We had 33 of our teams participate and of those all got the basic done and 25 had a drivable machine by 6 pm CST. This greatly boosted the confidence and feeling of "Hey we can do this" of the rookie teams and some of the experienced teams as well. It took a lot of preplanning, cooperation and help. All of our veteran teams supplied both mentors and experienced students to help accomplish this goal. It was a shining example of the FIRST spirit at full throttle. It was a long 12 hour day filled with examples of working together for a common goal and accomplishing it. It truly was a fulfilling experience for me personally.

Ken