'New 4-H team will compete in robotics' Article

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I believe several of those teams will also be attending Midwest Regional.

[Akash Rastogi]

UIUC also has a facebook group up if you want to learn more https://www.facebook.com/illinoisro

[ebarker]

Four of the eighteen rookie teams in Georgia are 4H,

Go 4H.

[DavidGitz]

We just met with the Alton team last night and gave them a demo and a lot of team-developed material to help them get up to speed quickly. We are working with 4 rookie FRC teams in the Southern Illinois area this year, it's a great expansion in this part of the state and we are looking forward to the 14 Rookie teams coming to the St. Louis Regional.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

David,
Are the teams you are helping all going to St. Louis Regional? If you need anything, let me know. I will give you my email off line.
Al

[DavidGitz]

Al - I just checked the STL regional and we have 5 rookie teams from Illinois coming: Alton, Mt. Vernon, Quincy, Troy and Springfield. If memory serves the Quincy team used to be around but went defunct a few years back, and now they are starting up again with new mentors/new students. We are supporting the Alton, Mt. Vernon and Troy teams more directly as they are more local for us and we have offered our help to Quincy and Springfield as well. For the St. Louis area a lof of the teams have been working in coordination with the RD to develop training camps, resources, anything we can do to help out new and existing teams. At the STL Regional I believe we are expecting 14 rookie teams so it is going to be a very exciting year!

Thanks for you offer of support. I will definitely let you know of anything that comes up.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

OK,
Since St. Louis and Midwest are the same weekend, it sounds like we are both going to be busy. At last count I think we have 13-14 rookies as well.
Al

[popnbrown]

Haha Akash, thanks for all the PR, for the UIUC group and our new team. I've really been lacking being active on CD, it's been quite a few years since I was last very active.

It's pretty exciting how hard Lisa Diaz has been working with JCPenney and FIRST to get all these teams jump started in Illinois. We were looking to start a team anyways, and having the 4-H State office, here helped. I believe that Lisa is still trying to garner interest for a few teams in different areas.

I don't know if it's too late, but if there are some veteran teams in Illinois that might be willing to do a demo or two PM me, we can see what can happen.

The list of current ROOKIE team locations is:
Forsyth
Champaign
Springfield
Alton
Bloomington
Galesburg
Joliet

[pfreivald]

3951 is a new rookie team (featured in Libby's Let's Talk FIRST!) that is also 4H and JCP. It's awesome to see such an outpouring of institutional support from 4H on top of the spectacular JCP sponsorship!