Mission Mayhem 2008

[Arefin Bari]

Hello Teams,

First off all, congratulations on another amazing FIRST season. As teams are getting ready to participate in offseason projects and competitions; we invite you to come join us at Mission Mayhem 2008. It's a great opportunity for new members to get a taste of a FIRST competition is like; also let your new drive team get some practice in.

This offseason will have a full FIRST field which will take place on September 26th and 27th of 2008. September 26th will be more of a practice day where the committee and volunteers will start putting together the field during the day. Teams are more than welcome to come and help and afterwards some practice matches will be ran. September 27th is when we will have qualifying matches and elimination matches.

- Mission Mayhem will be taking place at Stranahan High School (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida); home of the Platinum Dragons; Team 1345.

- Registration fee is $300.

- There is a tentative social planned for Friday night for all the teams, volunteers participating as well.

- If any teams have a practice robot that a pre-rookie team can borrow, it will be much appreciated.

- Please email me at Arefin.bari@gmail.com to pre-register your team. Pre-registration is open until May 25th. An invoice will be sent out to you later on for payments. You can also pre-register your team by going to www.missionmayhem.org (Team Registration tab). Hotel information, Agenda, Restaurants, Awards pages will be updated in the next week.

- Just like every year, here is a little contest for all the teams out there. There are many engineers, teachers, mentors, and parents who spend a lot of time with your team. They inspire you everyday and motivate you to be the best. This year at Mission Mayhem, we will recognize one mentor for his/her commitment to the team which will be called the “Mission Mayhem Mentor Award.” I would like to also extend this offer out to all the teams who participates in FIRST; even if you are not attending Mission Mayhem. We will have a submission page on the website, where you can enter your submission.

- If you would like to volunteer for the event, please fill out the form on the website and we will get in touch with you soon.

Thank you to the hosting teams (team 1251 and team 1345). I hope to see you all soon.

[Nawaid Ladak]

i already booked my free tickets to Ft. Lauderdale last week for that weekend

(i love Spirit Air, it's great when you combine their sales to get free airfare for every weekend over 4 months !!!!! )

edit: Arefin, if you need any help with hotels, let me know, i work for choice hotels therefore i can try getting some discounts for teams.

also i can do the same with cheap airfare, ie under $40 round trip from Tampa or Orlando to FLL

(i paid $33 for round trip tix to championships from Orlando !!!!!)

[Libby K]

I hope I can make it out to Mission Mayhem again- thanks for placing it on the weekend after my birthday! I really want to go, but my family may decide to overrule that. They're allowed- I'm only going to turn 17 once.

If I do make it, I expect a wicked awesome party from all those crazy Florida FIRSTers!

[Michelle Celio]

Originally Posted by Libby K

I hope I can make it out to Mission Mayhem again- thanks for placing it on the weekend after my birthday! I really want to go, but my family may decide to overrule that. They're allowed- I'm only going to turn 17 once.

If I do make it, I expect a wicked awesome party from all those crazy Florida FIRSTers!

Just tell your parents you want to have your party closer to your grandparents . Heck, they could even come to the event (I'm sure Arefin will want to see Mama Kamen again .)

Arefin, has there been any word on who is going to be the head ref / any rule changes for this year?

So excited for another year of mayhem

-Tim I swear if that ends up on the webiste again this year, you're getting wet -

[Akash Rastogi]

Sorry we can't make it down Arefin, like I said before maybe next year. Thanks for the invite though

[Pat Arnold]

Originally Posted by Michelle Celio

-Tim I swear if that ends up on the webiste again this year, you're getting wet -

I predict a very wet Tim. By the way, he mentioned there is a water shortage in FL as well as GA.

Mission Mayhem is a great event; hopefully MARS will have met the challenges facing it (loss of its teacher, workspace, founding members) and be able to join in. Hopefully some robot performance issues will be corrected too!

[Koko Ed]

I would love to come back and volunteer again.
I'll even make sure to fly into the right airport and stay in the right city this time!

[techtiger1]

Considering I'll have nothing else to do except sit around in Boca doing hw that weekend why not. Let's have Mayhem and we really need to stop this indoor stuff or change the name becuase it's not Mayhem when it's inside j/k. Thank you to Stranahan H.S. for letting us have the event their again. It will be fun to see everyone and help get my new drive team together. About time we got a thread about Mayhem 2008.

LETS GET THIS MAYHEM STARTED !!!!!!!

-Drewskies
(only south Fl firsters know about that nickname)

[mrs. p]

i don't think PINK has ever missed one of these events and we're not going to start this year! 233 will be there!

[BLCamp]

Team 79 will definitely be there as well. Thanks for picking up the ball and running with it Arefin!!!

Brian

[Cooley744]

Team 744 can't wait to compete at Mission Mayhem again!

[Arefin Bari]

The teams that have registered so far:

79
108
168
179
233
744
1251
1251 rookie
1345
1345 rookie
1649
1889 (Gary, I just heard a news, we need to talk)
1902
2023
2383

Still waiting to hear from teams. I understand that schools are in the middle of AP/IB/Final exams.

Yes Michelle, there will be some rule changes. As for the head ref, I have few people in my mind. I have yet to speak to them about it.

As far as website goes, the website will be updated next Tuesday (according to Tim). We will post a tentetive agena and add another tab where you can nominate your mentors. Every team is required to submit an essay. Your team is also more than welcome to submit more than one essay.

I have been getting a lot of feedback as far as volunteers go. I have a lot of volunteers that have signed up already. Please go to the site and sign up to volunteer.

Here is a contest to keep everyone (that is whoever is willing) busy during offseason. We need a trophy design done. What we would like is a design that relates to FIRST Overdrive 2008 and very easy to manufacter. You can either email the design to me (arefin.bari@gmail.com) or post it here. Also while you guys are at it, please design a shirt for us? I would be greatful if someone is willing to step up. The logo for Mayhem will be the same one as last year (Koko Ed's design). We are open to creative designs (but please make sure you don't break the FIRST logo rules). Please email all the submissions or post it here.

Thanks to the Chiefdelphi community who has been very supportive over the years.

[Arefin Bari]

All the teams that have registered for Mission Mayhem 2008 should have received an email from me. Important updates and payment information were included in that email. If you are a main contact and haven't received an email from me, please send me a message.

We are asking all local teams to be in attendance on Friday (September 26th) for setup. The field will arrive at Stranahan High School at 7:00 a.m. We will start setting up right away and it should be all done by noon. There will be practice matches from 12:00 p.m. till 4:00 p.m. followed by a Mayhem Social at DeVry University's campus. Teams who are traveling out of town are more than welcome to join us.

It is mandatory that all teams that are attending mayhem submit their mentors for the Mayhem Mentor Award. Please direct your students to www.missionmayhem.org under the "Mentor Award" tab. We also encourage students from other teams in FIRST to submit an essay (yes, that means if you are a student and you are reading this, you should submit your mentor).

There will be a webcast for this event. Webcast info will be published the week of Mayhem. I hope to see you all there. =)

[techtiger1]

Registration for voluenteers is also up on the website. Special thanks to Tim Arnold for that one as usual and I'm sure many others have contributed. Speaking of voluenteers is there a date when the list will be finalized and we will recieve a job placement email? I was just wondering.

Thanks,
Drew

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

Speaking of voluenteers is there a date when the list will be finalized and we will recieve a job placement email? I was just wondering.

Volunteers should receive an email from me 2 weeks prior to the event. I will do my best at assigning the jobs volunteers signed up for. My inbox exploded with signups from volunteers in the last two weeks.

So far we have the following teams registered and still waiting for few teams to register.

79
108
168
179
233
408
744
1251
1251 rookie
1345
1649
1841
1889
1902
2023
2383

Teams, please bear with me since we have a whole new committee of people working on this off-season unlike the other years. I know I have been very bad about sending out detailed information about the event. The website should have everything (well almost everything) by the end of the weekend.