Hey Everyone!
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ira Goldberg, and I am a Senior at the University of Michigan. I am asking that everyone in FIRST please go to the Pepsi Refresh website and vote for the Michigan Engineering Zone (MEZ) in the $250,000 category. The MEZ is a facility in downtown Detroit that provides a space for 15+ Detroit area teams to not only work on their robots during the year, but also for students to receive academic help and ACT prep courses that may not otherwise be available to them. If able to get the most or second most amount of votes in the $250,000 category, the money will go towards helping to fund new teams, expanding the facility to accommodate more people, better equipment for teams using the space, safe transportation to and from schools, and for ACT prep and tutoring courses for any student involved.
Here is where FIRST Community is needed... we need you to vote! With the effort of the entire FIRST Community, I know we can get the votes needed to help fund the MEZ, which so many Detroit area teams, and more importantly the students on those teams, depend on. If you have a facebook account and are already logged in, then all you have to do is go to Pepsi Refresh website, go to the MEZ page, and click "Vote for this idea." It's really that simple. It will take less than a minute out of your day, and you'll be supporting a good cause. You can vote every day, starting today, November 1st, until November 30th.
FIRST is so much more than just building a big robot... Its about inspiring high schoolers to get more involved with science and technology, to learn the importance of not only competing, but cooperating with other teams and students, and coming away from all these experiences for the better. The MEZ provides a space for Detroit teams where all of this can be done in a safe, collaborative environment. Especially for an area that has seen such hard times recently, I wholeheartedly support everything that the MEZ does, and hopefully by voting, you will too.
Here's the link, now go vote!
http://www.refresheverything.com/mezdetroit
P.S. Tell Friends, Family, and anyone else you know to vote too!
-Ira Goldberg