Arizona gets half million to create new teams!

[falconmaster]

Science Foundation Arizona, through the Arizona FIRST planning committee, is providing a half a million dollars to promote the development of FIRST in Arizona!
Among some of the aspects of the grant they are providing $6,000.00 to new FRC teams and schools that fall under the category of Title I or rural. They are also providing $3000.00 to the teacher mentor as a stipend. $1000.00 for tools. They want 13 new FRC teams, 20 new FTC teams and 30 new FLL teams.
Team 842 has brought in 4 new schools to date and three new FLL teams. They are hosting the FTC and FLL qualifying events for the state. FIRST is growing in AZ. It looks like there are 7 new FRC teams so far out of the 13 new ones wanted!

[BornaE]

we will be participating in the FTC too this year.
how can we apply for any grant. and when is the competition.

[falconmaster]

There is a conference call this thurs to finalize the process, but FTC teams will be elligible for $1000.00 and no teacher stipend, sorry. They must be a new team oustide the Maricopa and Pima counties or (possibly existing teams that are title one schools) I hope you qualify! We will know the details after thurs. The FTC event will be Dec 1st, 2007 at Carl Hayden. Hope to see you there!

[Akash Rastogi]

Wow, that's quite an accomplishment for Arizona teams. Keep it up!!!

[JB987]

Great news for Arizona! Now if other states (like your neighbor, Nevada) could have a foundation started with a $100 million donation as you have been fortunate to have then maybe our growth could also be greater and less painful...in the meantime, we will continue to spread the word and bring on more businesses and communities the old fashioned way, one company at a time, one pollitician at a time...

By the way, has anyone heard more about the Federal initiative passed in Congress this summer?

[falconmaster]

Yes I have, but I don't know any details about the federal one. We have a state one that also passed! We have been helping the governor get the after school academic funding passed. 2 million dollars that teams can apply for. Details on the grant process will be out in Jan 2008. We have been helping key legislators and the governor to get this bill passed for two years! We can't wait to see the application process.

I believe that if the Nevada teams start hammering their politicians they will begin to chip away at the stubbornness and paradigm paralysis. Team 842 sent over 4,000 emails (FIRST Forums, Dean's Homework!) and letters to city, state and federal level to get involved with FIRST by attending a regional or the national event. We kind of felt like all that work did not amount to much when no one, not even Dean mentioned it at Nationals. We had more than the rest of the FIRST community combined. Later in the summer we found out that it was the 15 lawmakers that we got to the Arizona Regional and the 4,000 emails that helped convince Science Foundation Arizona to award FIRST the grant! Dean's homework paid off, not only for us, but for Arizona! This is why I believe it can work for Nevada as well. Hell, we will even join you in the email campaign if you wish, just say the word and we will have an army of e mailers helping to get the message to your politicians. We will send you a sample email for your approval,( you know your politicians better). Just say the word!

[JaneYoung]

Congratulations on a job well done, Arizona!
Jane

[Alivia]

That is indeed a major feat! (sp?)
Great job, Arizonian teams!
That is definitely something other states should try to emulate.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by falconmaster

Yes I have, but I don't know any details about the federal one. We have a state one that also passed! We have been helping the governor get the after school academic funding passed. 2 million dollars that teams can apply for. Details on the grant process will be out in Jan 2008. We have been helping key legislators and the governor to get this bill passed for two years! We can't wait to see the application process.

I believe that if the Nevada teams start hammering their politicians they will begin to chip away at the stubbornness and paradigm paralysis. Team 842 sent over 4,000 emails (FIRST Forums, Dean's Homework!) and letters to city, state and federal level to get involved with FIRST by attending a regional or the national event. We kind of felt like all that work did not amount to much when no one, not even Dean mentioned it at Nationals. We had more than the rest of the FIRST community combined. Later in the summer we found out that it was the 15 lawmakers that we got to the Arizona Regional and the 4,000 emails that helped convince Science Foundation Arizona to award FIRST the grant! Dean's homework paid off, not only for us, but for Arizona! This is why I believe it can work for Nevada as well. Hell, we will even join you in the email campaign if you wish, just say the word and we will have an army of e mailers helping to get the message to your politicians. We will send you a sample email for your approval,( you know your politicians better). Just say the word!

WORD!...Thanks for the inspiring reply. We would love to see a copy of your email as would other states, I'm sure. Could you post it in the white pages? We will continue to push to get more of our legislators to attend our regional as well as the state FLL Championship we hold at our school. One problem we face in Nevada deals with the fact that our Legislature meets only every other year and we just wrapped up a session this June so I guess that gives us lots of time to campaign for help.

[falconmaster]

Ok, we got the word.
First we need a list of e-mail address of the state level congressman and senators for Nevada.
Second The letters we posted on FIRST Forums last year seem to be gone, but the count of the number of letters is still there. So I cant get you the whole variety of letters the students wrote, at least not yet. I do Have my own however. I do not know how to the the white paper thing so I will post my letter here. This is one addressed to Senator Kyle.

Faridodin “Fredi” Lajvardi
72 N. Velma Dr.
Gilbert, Arizona, 85233
Dear Senator Kyle

The United States is facing many new challenges in the world today. One that I wish to discuss in this letter is the one of the future of the youth in America. Our society has been lax for far too long in pushing our kids to go into math, science and technology. We celebrate professional athletes, movie and pop music stars, more than any other culture. Kids today think that their future is to go into one of these popular fields or get an “ordinary” job that consists of everything else. They don’t know what an engineer is much less what he or she does. Ask a young person in the United States today to name an inventor that is living, and they can’t do it. It is as if nothing was invented after the Wright brothers. We are doing a terrible job in this country ever since we won the space race against the Russians. We had more students going in to math and science during the space race than we do now, even though the population is much larger today. Of the number of students that are in math and science today, half are foreign students. We are still enjoying the fruits of this surge in focus during the 60’s, but not for long. Most of those people are now either dead or retired. Luckily there is a solution.
Fifteen years ago, U.S. inventor, Dean Kamen, saw the direction that America was going in and saw that the standard of living that Americans have been enjoying the 50 years was in danger of being lost. He started an organization called FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology, that hosts a robotics competition to get the youth of America interested in learning about engineering so they can see that it can be fun, challenging and rewarding. He saw that the U.S. was a competitive oriented society with all the emphasis on professional sports. Since the competitive model worked so well he used this drive to hook the students into science and technology which normally would be seen as subjects for nerds and geeks. It worked beyond anyone’s wildest expectations! Today there are 32,500 high school students on 1,300 teams in 37 regional competitions across the country in the FIRST Robotics Competition. There are also 92,000 grade school children that participate in 45 countries in a Lego robotics competition. Here is a model that has been proven, there is no experimentation or risk involved. FIRST changes kids lives and helps to ensure that the U.S. will maintain its number one standing in the world.
As a sponsor-mentor of the Falcon Robotics team, I am inviting you to attend the FIRST Robotics Arizona Regional competition March 9-10, 2007 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum as guest of the Team 842, Carl Hayden High School, Falcon Robotics. (event is from 9am to 4pm both days) Please find it in your schedule to attend and witness first hand how being in the FIRST program has help transform Carl Hayden High School from a underperforming “gangster” school to an improving school with a robotics team that has been consistently one of the top teams in the country and achieved world wide publicity. There will be 40 teams from surrounding states, Canada and Mexico. You are also invited to attend the FIRST International Robotics Championships in Atlanta Georgia April 12-14, 2007. There will be 800 teams from 17 countries competing in the Georgia Dome for the title. The Falcon Robotics team has qualified for the International competition and we will be there. Please contact me for more info.
We are also behind Governor Janet Napolitano’s initiative to fund after school academic programs like FIRST robotics teams. It is FIRST’s goal and our goal to see every high school in the state to have robotics teams like they have football teams. Rhode Island and Hawaii have already declared this as a goal for their state. We need your support to put Arizona up there for once instead of being ranked last in education as we are. Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,

Faridodin “Fredi” Lajvardi

we will be waiting for that list of emails and I will let let Nilo Thomas, our team Vice president and chair of the letter writing campaign, know about emailing Nevada too. Stay in touch. Coachfredi@hotmail.com
Talk to you soon.

[falconmaster]

Here is another one from one of our students
I also found out how to see all of last years posts.
You have to select the beginning option from the drop menu that says last posting. Then you can see all them. Here is also the link, hope it works.
http://forums.usfirst.org/forumdispl...0&daysprune=-1


Dear Senator Hilary Clinton,

My name is Angelica Hernandez, a senior from Carl Hayden Community High School . As the Vice President of the Falcon Robotics Team 842, I would like to tell you about FIRST, an incredible program that has existed for over 10 years.

FIRST not only engages students in challenging competitions, but also changes their perspective about science and technology. FIRST, an acronym for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an international organization created to promote science and technology in the lives of the future engineers, and inventors: the students. It offers students the opportunity to take part in a competition in which they will gain interest in science and strengthen both their teamwork and leadership abilities.

Personally, FIRST has provided me with a life changing experience. It has taught me the importance of science and technology and how without it our country will not remain to be the #1 country in the world. With fewer students graduating in the field of science and technology, our country will fall behind in technological advances. It is for this reason that I would like to ask you to support after school academic activities involving science and technology. It would be extraordinary to have all the high schools in the state enjoy the excitement that a FIRST team would entitle them to.

In addition, I would like to invite you to the National FIRST Robotics Competition proceeding on April 12-14 in the Atlanta Georgia, inside the Georgia Dome. This exciting event will run from 9:00am to 4:00pm every day. It would be an opportunity for you to learn more about this program and get a first hand feel of how FIRST is impacting the lives of high school students.

I hope you truly consider this invitation and have time in your schedule to attend. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions at ahrunner_08@yahoo.com and if you decide to attend the competition. Thank you for your time and hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,


Angelica Hernandez

and here is another
My name is Leidy Robledo; I'm a sophomore attending Carl Hayden High School, which is located on 35 Ave and Roosevelt. I'm in my school's Falcon Robotic Team (842), which competes in the F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology) Competition. The F.I.R.S.T. competition requires students to organize, build, and program a robot so that it can play in a sport-like game. Every year the Competition and rules change. Each year new and different parts are needed to build the robots. This gives all the teams, new & old, the equal chance to finish at the same time. After announcing the new rules, the teams have 6 weeks to complete the robots. This is where all the hard work takes places. When you really think about it 6 weeks is not that long to build and program the robots. During this period we must use our time very wisely, so, we have to work on the robot before school, during our lunch, and after school.

In my neighborhood teenagers aren't expected to go to college, for us it's a great accomplishment to even finish High School. Some of us think that after graduation we don't need more education. What I mean is that we do not have any inspiration to continue, many of us have not met anyone with a degree, besides teachers. When asked what career we want, we usually think of Hollywood or Sports, but we don't realize that only so many people can make it there. All this is changing thanks to a man named Dean Kamen. He created a sport that exercises the most important part of your body, your brain.

Today, I would like to have the honor of inviting you to the F.I.R.S.T. Nationals also known as the 'Super Bowl of Smart'. It will take place on April 12 through 14, in the Georgia Dome, in Atlanta, George. You can show your support for education, science and technology. Not only that, but I can guarantee that you will have a great time and you will be surprised what teenagers can accomplish if they set their mind to it. We'll be counting on you!

Sincerely,

Leidy Robledo

and another

Dear US Congressmen,
Hello my name is Nilo Thomas. I am on the Carl Hayden High School Falcon FIRST robotics team 842. Everyone thinks that my team is a Cinderella story because we are a poor school and yet we beat MIT, but we didn’t come from rags to riches we just discovered what we are capable of as a team. Everybody on the team has an essential job on the team even though some are more involved with the construction of the robot than others. The robotics team is not only for students who want a career in engineering but it’s also for students who want networking skills, public speaking skills, and leadership skills. There’s a job or place for everyone on the team.

FIRST stands for, For Inspiration of Science and Technology. The message of FIRST is to develop more future engineers in the United States and hopefully the entire world by changing the culture. By allowing students to become interactive at a young age with Science and Technology, the FIRST Program is helping to mold the future engineers and scientists of the world. Instead of focusing on a career in athletics or “living the American Idol dream” students can be encouraged to achieve academic goals for their future. This April on the 12-14 FIRST will be holding the nationals for the FIRST robotics competition at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. It would make a significant difference in the students outlook on robotics if you would be able to attend the competition.

The FIRST Robotics team has completely changed my outlook on Science, Technology, and Engineering in general. I now realize that FIRST is not only for nerds or the smart kids but its meant for the future of the world. It’s a program dedicated to molding the future generations of the worlds Scientists, Technicians, Engineers, and Leaders. The FIRST Program is dedicated to encouraging and supporting students in their admirations and goals in the fields of Science, Technology, and all academics. And wouldn’t be great to have a president that could program a robot one day.

Sincerely,
Nilo D. Thomas

[JB987]

Fredi,
Thanks for the jump start collection of letters. We will be composing a list of legislators, etc. to target and then send out versions of your great letters...after we hit them first, then maybe it would be the right time to hit them with your inputs?

[falconmaster]

We will send you a demo letter geared for Nevada for your approval, I have 50 kids ready to email them!

Also put your legislators contacts on your website and invite people to use your list so they do not have to look for the contact info themselves.
here is our example

http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...67&pagecat=298

Hope to hear from you soon!!!!!

[robostangs548]

nice job, keep up the good work!