Top 50 Engineering Schools Involvement

[Anne Shade]

Georgia Tech is now heavily involved with the FIRST program. Our group, GT FIRST, has become the hub for all the Georgia teams. We host a 10 week program, Technology Enrichment Sessions, in the fall for all GA teams to help prepare them for the season ahead ending with a final mini-competition. We host the GA remote kickoff and a scrimmage before shipping. We have a help hotline for area teams, help find sponsors for those teams that need it, do presentations at conventions all over Georgia. We also help on the Regional planning committee and helped bring the Championship to Atlanta.

Georgia Tech has also started sponsoring the Peachtree Regional event and help with the Championship. We help recruit volunteers for the Georgia event and mentors for new teams.

We also directly mentor Wheeler High school, the 2004 Peachtree Regional champions and Chairman's award winners, and provide funds for the running of the team.

All in all we are involved in many levels of the FIRST organization in Georgia and one of the great parts is that most of this is run by undergraduate students which gives us a great opportunity to make a difference and meet some great people. Hopefully we will continue to grow GT FIRST and be able to continue growing FIRST in GA. If anyone has any questions about what we do here at GT FIRST, feel free to PM me or send me an email.

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by Anne Bergeron

Georgia Tech is now heavily involved with the FIRST program. Our group, GT FIRST, has become the hub for all the Georgia teams. We host a 10 week program, Technology Enrichment Sessions, in the fall for all GA teams to help prepare them for the season ahead ending with a final mini-competition. We host the GA remote kickoff and a scrimmage before shipping. We have a help hotline for area teams, help find sponsors for those teams that need it, do presentations at conventions all over Georgia. We also help on the Regional planning committee and helped bring the Championship to Atlanta.

cool...i knew GT was involved w/ peachtree and 1002, but other than that i did not know their involvement, thanks for bringing this to my attention.....hopefully i can find out about more colleges that do this kind of stuff I do no know about.

[Matt Leese]

RIT's not on the list (we have virtually no graduate programs) but I can tell you a little about RIT's involvement in FIRST.

RIT directly sponsors team 73 along with Bausch & Lomb. RIT also provided mentors for the Charles Finney Schools team (I don't remember the team number but they are a rookie). This past year RIT hosted a remote kickoff. RIT is also one of the sponsors of and the host of the Finger Lakes Regional which is coming to Rochester next year. RIT students and faculty have been involved in the planning of the regional competition. We're still trying to convince RIT to give scholarhips to FIRST participants but it should be merely finding the right person to talk to at this point.

Matt