[Rick TYler]

Our organization this year had 20 rookies, one experienced student, 1-1/2 experienced mentors, and four rookie mentors. My only job:

Plate-Spinner-in-Chief: My job is to be like the performer on The Ed Sullivan Show who spun plates on top of poles. Order parts, register for events, ask for money, arrange for places to meet, educate parents, educate students, ask for more money, educate school administrators, keep our sponsors engaged, coordinate with other FIRSTers in Washington through FIRSTWA, ask for even more money, arrange travel, coordinate permission/release forms (need to get that done for Atlanta...), do some engineering mentoring, arrange for food, do some software mentoring, make sure our test field got assembled, train other people to do some of this so I don't have to keep doing it all, gently place the Hoovermatic on parents suck them into taking over non-robot support tasks, convert our Honda Odyssey into the RobotVan so that we can work anywhere with walls although no one has ridden in the back-back seat since last October (it's folded flat and covered with robot parts), and ask for money. Not much, really!