**FIRST EMAIL**/New Safety Animation Contest!

[Rich Wong]

Greetings Teams:

In conjunction with Autodesk starting to ship this season's software, FIRST is pleased to announce an animation contest to encourage teams to use the 3ds max 7software to develop their skills. This should be good practice for this season's Autodesk Visualization Award submissions!

The theme of the contest is "Care Enough to Act." Animations must focus on one of the following behaviors:
No running or horseplay
Proper lifting and transportation of robots
Always wearing safety glasses
Housekeeping and work environment
Safe tool usage practices
Proper battery charging practices
Robot energy storage and pinch points.
The animations should be 15 to 30 seconds long (submissions longer than 30 seconds will not be considered) and must conform to all the following guidelines:
Entrant must be a fully registered team participating in the 2005 FIRST Robotics Competition
Limit one (1) entry per team. Please identify each entry with the team number and name
A completed and clearly legible Entry Form and Autodesk Archive Consent and Release Authorization Form (available at the URL below) must be submitted as follows: one completed copy of each form must be mailed to FIRST by Monday, December 13, 2004 (mailing information for both forms available on the Entry Form), and one copy of each form must be uploaded on Streamline by December 15, 2005 by 12:00 noon EST.
The animation must be posted on Streamline by Wednesday, December 15, 2004 12:00 noon EST.
Important: Teams can use last year's (3ds max 6) or this year's (3ds max 7) software.

Submissions must be made on line at http://projectpoint.buzzsaw.com/client/FIRST. Please note you will need Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP and Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.01 or later to access the site.

The winning entry will be highlighted during the FIRST Kickoff on January 8, 2005. FIRST will also select one (1) animation from each category above to show at events during the season.

If you have any questions, please contact us at frcteams@usfirst.org. Good Luck to all!

Go Teams!