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lots of teams help each other out
A lot of teams here in the Bay area not only help mentor teams, but also help finding new team so they can mentor them as part of the deal with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. You get about 2000 dollars (I think) if you mentor 1 rookie team going to the regional you are attending, while going through a process making sure teams are doing their job mentoring the rookie team, and making sure the rookie team take advantage of the mentoring team. That's just how it is over here in California... Though Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers challenged other sponsors doing the same thing.
In general, you will find that a lot of teams are more helpful then you think. I know a lot of them hold workshops for other teams to help them prepare for competition. WRRF in Bay Area did it for 2 years now, and SCRRF just started this year with some very successful workshops, and also workshops at this and last year's Novi kickoff held by lots of great FIRSTers from around that area.
At the same time, these teams hold post season competitions and something totally different like OCRRA and CDI (unfortunately canceled this year), which are great for teams to get extra experiences at, as well as great chance to socialize with other FIRSTers.
Teams simply made friends with each other through out the years, and are turning that friendship into something more meaningful. I encourage all rookie teams to talk to other teams at their regional kickoffs (AND regional competitions of course), and see what kind of activities are available in their area.
Pay attention to the “off season/unofficial competition” forum in here too, as well as the FIRST website to see what post season activities are happening, so you can take full advantage of them.
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Hardware Test Engineer supporting RE<C, Google.
1999-2001: Team 192 Gunn Robotics Team
2001-2002: Team 100, 192, 258, 419
2002-2004: Western Region Robotics Forum, Score Keeper @ Sac, Az, SVR, SC, CE, IRI, CalGames
2003-2004, 2006-2007: California Robot Games Manager
2008: MC in training @ Sac, CalGames
2009: Master of Ceremony @ Sac, CalGames
2010: GA in training @ SVR, Sac.
2010-2011: Mechanical Mentor, Team 115 MVRT
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