Finding helping hands

[Anne Shade]

I will try to give you as much advice as I can. Sounds like you have alrerady contacted a lot of the faculty. You can also contact the head of the science department at your college to get their support of the program. But one thing missing is the high school. Teachers should be going back to school in the next 2-3 weeks. Before this happens, you should put together an information package to send out the local teachers. You can usually get email addresses and mailing addresses on school board websites. What we have done in the past is contact the heads of science and math department, science related club advisors, and principals. Maybe you can find a teacher who is an alumni to the college you are going to.

Once you have the school, you should have a meeting with the teacher(s) and explain the project in full. Have an organizational plan and a timeline for getting things done including getting students, a team name, registration, and all the other things that have to get done. During the Fall, make sure to have as many meetings as possible with the students to teach them the basics of the competition. I have some of our training sessions on our website at http://www.cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/robo...s/gtfirst2003.

For sponsors, look in the yellow pages online or try searching yahoo for that city (yahoo has lists of businesses for different cities). Look for manufacturing, engineering firms, and anything else you think might be interested in robotics. You can also find local machine shops that way. Get a sponsorship package together withthe teachers. You want them to be involved as much as possible to make your life easier the next year. Go do presentations for potential sponsors. It's always harder the first year without a robot but you can get pictures of past competitions and give them an idea of what the program is about.


I hope this helped in some way. Feel free to email me or PM me if you have any questions. Good luck!!!