Qotw [11-24-02]: What your team do beside building robot...

[Jeff Waegelin]

We basically do three things: fundraising, demos, and OCCRA. Fundraising is pretty self explanatory. We get money from anything we can. For demos, we visit area schools, our sponsors, and recruit members at our school. OCCRA is the Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association. 25 schools in Oakland County, Michigan participate in OCCRA. It's run like FIRST (a kickoff, 6 week build, "regionals", and a championship), but the robots are a little smaller, and they have to be entirely student-built. It's a great experience for the students, and wonderful training for new team members. OCCRA is run by a couple of people, including Mike McIntyre from team 1 and Mike Martus from team 47. I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you all about it if you're interested in starting something similar.