**FIRST ROOKIE ALERT**/Upcoming Deadlines/Recruit Help Now/Save Yourself Some Trouble

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Rookies:

Upcoming Deadlines:

• 12/01/11 @ 8 PM EST: Regional Event Registration closes; Championship Registration closes.
• 12/02/11 @ 8 PM EST: Kit & Kickoff Registration closes
• 12/02/11: Payment deadline for Initial Regional Event Registration
• 12/08/11@ 12 PM EST: Deadline to submit Safety animation submissions (via STIMS)

Dec 15 team profile information in TIMS will be exported.
Why is this important to you? Program books are distributed to visitors, VIPs and teams at Regional Events and your team profile will be included if (and only if) you have completed the information in TIMS by the deadline. You want other teams to know who you are and you want to bring home this slick souvenir to your sponsors and supporters. To make sure you have the most up to date information included in your profile:

• Log into TIMS https://my.usfirst.org/frc/tims/site.lasso
• Under Teams I can Administer, click the Edit button for your team
• In the Team Profile section, Click the Edit/View button for Team Information

Recruit Help now:

After Kickoff your team will be too busy building a robot to even ask for help (let alone explain to others what kind of help you need) so start recruiting now. You need:

• 2-3 professional engineers to work directly with your students during the design and construction of your team robot.
• 2-10 additional adults – to handle everything else. Ease the burden on yourself and your technical volunteers by assigning parents and other volunteers to:

Make travel arrangements – how will you get your team to the competitions?

Communicate with parents/the school(s)/sponsors/local press

Communicate with other FRC teams/your Regional Director/FRC

Pick up supplies – keep your team focused on the work at hand and send someone else to the hardware store

Organize snacks – your team will put in long hours and everyone will get hungry

You should already have a Main, Alternate and Shipping Contact for your team (you needed these names to register for your first event.) but do these volunteers know what they’re supposed to do? Their roles are outlined in sections 3.2.1-3.2.3 of the FRC Administrative Manual: http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default...ganization.pdf

Save yourself some trouble:

Rookie teams from last year suggest you set up your record keeping methods and create a financial plan now. Set up your fundraising/revenue stream in advance and figure out how to pay for items you need to purchase during the season. Don’t let a few mentors charge everything on their credit cards. They might get stuck with the bill. More details are available in the FRC Handbook:http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles..._Resources/FRC Handbook.pdf

Go Rookies!

FRC Team Support
FIRST® is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) Not-For-Profit Organization
V603-666-3906
F603-666-3907
E frcteams@usfirst.org
W www.usfirst.org

[sanddrag]

Interesting. This is the first time I've seen FIRST make a specific recommendation on what kind of mentors a team should have.

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Interesting. This is the first time I've seen FIRST make a specific recommendation on what kind of mentors a team should have.

And is this a bad thing?

The Senior Mentors have been preaching this for years.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

And is this a bad thing?

It's actually a great thing, IMO.

Maybe this will cut down on the 'You have Engineers, that's unfair' crowd.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by thefro526

It's actually a great thing, IMO.

Maybe this will cut down on the 'You have Engineers, that's unfair' crowd.

Definitely a great thing.

[Chris is me]

Both getting engineers and non-engineering adults on a team as fast as possible is the best way for rookies to be successful, and I'm so glad that FIRST has come out and recommended that very directly to teams.

Has this been done in the past? It seems like something that would have been done before.

[Joe Ross]

The how to start a team flyer (http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Rob...HowToStart.pdf) recommends 2-3 engineers, but only 2-3 other adults. The same recommendations are in the How to Start a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team document (http://usfirst.org/sites/default/fil...team%20v2.pdf). The FRC Handbook (http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Com...20Handbook.pdf) mentions the need for both engineering mentors and parents, but does not give specific recommendations on numbers.

All of these are from the "How to Start a Team" page on the FIRST website (http://usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/...rt-an-frc-team).

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

And is this a bad thing?

Oh certainly not. I was just making an observation. And perhaps it has been mentioned previously but I was not aware, which is likely the case.

[rwood359]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

[*]12/08/11@ 12 PM EST: Deadline to submit Safety animation submissions (via STIMS)

I warned our animation student that the due date was the 8th, he said the 9th. I showed him the blast, he showed me the contest announcement
http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/Safety%20Animation%20Contest%20announcement%202012 .pdf

I allowed that he couldn't be wrong getting it in by the 8th. Can anyone explain the difference? It could cause problems.

[Mark McLeod]

TIMS also thinks it is due on 12/8 by noon EST.
Have the student check in STIMS. That's the automated system that controls the absolute, final, actual due date in the end. A printed flyer won't do much for you if STIMS has closed the nominations.

I'd go with the earlier date, too.

[RoboMom]

I know I am preaching to the already initiated here, but some resources available for the non-engineers on NEMO
www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

We are in the process of updating the resource page, with additions, deletions and updated papers. KathieK is our website guru.

Under the "Workshops" is a document listing a snapshot of workshops held around the country with lots of links. I have a ppt presentation linked here that I did on "Parents-101 Ways they can help your FIRST team." There is also a paper on this topic in the resources.