FIRST TEAM MEET WITH PRESIDENT - CONGRESS

[Don Knight]

President Bush to honor FIRST students on April 30. Congressional Reception follows White House visit.

We are thrilled to announce that three FIRST teams will be honored by President George W. Bush at the White House on Monday, April 30, 2007.

Approximately one hundred students and mentors representing three of the top teams from the FIRST Community will meet with the President to share their experiences and achievements. The teams, who received top honors at this month's FIRST Championship held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, are:

Team 1677, "Access 9" from South Bend, Indiana who was awarded the 2nd Place FIRST LEGO League Champion's Award
Team 3053, "Occam's Engineers" from Mendham, New Jersey who received the FIRST Vex Challenge Inspire Award
Team 365, the "Miracle Workerz" of MOE Robotics Group from Wilmington, Delaware who won the FIRST Robotics Competition 2007 Chairman's Award

FIRST Founder Dean Kamen, FIRST Chairman John Abele, FIRST President Paul Gudonis, NASA Program Executive for Solar System Exploration Dave Lavery, and key sponsors of this visit to Washington from BAE Systems, Boston Scientific, and General Motors, will join the teams at this celebration of their achievements.

Following the White House visit, the teams will attend a Congressional Reception hosted by Congressman Jim Langevin where they will give presentations, demonstrate their robots, and share their accomplishments with members of Congress.

FIRST thanks our good friend Congressman Langevin for his recognition and encouragement of FIRST over the years. We appreciate this opportunity to recognize our Championship teams.

FIRST also thanks the following sponsors for their continued involvement as well as for their support of this event: BAE Systems, Boston Scientific, and General Motors.

[Joe Matt]

I'll buy John a beer (at next champs, when I'm legal) if they can get President Bush to pump his fist and yell "GO MOE!"

Glad to see a tradition dating back to the first President Bush being practiced again! Hopefully it'll continue throughout the years....

[Andrea's Mom]

Since I AM legal (for too many years to admit to), I'll buy John the beer for Joe Matt. Waiting anxiously to hear from MOE team captain - we were not told what time the team would be meeting with the president. It's been an exciting ride for this team and I, for one, will be going through withdrawal when the captain heads to RPI in August.

[Tim Delles]

Congrats to all 3 of those teams, in particular MOE. I have seen your Chiarmans presentation, along with talking with you at FLR this year, you truely do inspire much more than just the people on your team.

Good luck and I hope all goes well today with President Bush and the congressional members that you meet with.

GO MOE

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Don Knight

President Bush to honor FIRST students on April 30. Congressional Reception follows White House visit.

We are thrilled to announce that three FIRST teams will be honored by President George W. Bush at the White House on Monday, April 30, 2007.

WOW!
Can't get better then this! (well, maybe a visit to Dean's house is just as cool)

Someone take pictures!!!

[Brandon Holley]

awesome!

[Heretic121]

Congrats to all of these teams *i wish it was televised* and i hope you all personally get to meet Congressman Jim Langevin... he is a great guy who really truely does support FIRST and its cause, and i wouldnt trade him for the world for a diffrent Congressman to represent the state of Rhode Island...

If anyone gets video of this please share the goodnes with all of us!

[Barry Bonzack]

What an experience for those students! Congrats to the three teams, this will be a memory you'll hold the rest of your life.

[Kyle]

This is from the press briefing from Tony Snow on the www.whitehouse.gov website detailing the Presidents scedule for the day.

At 3:45 p.m., a photo opportunity with the FIRST award winners. FIRST was founded in 1989 to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. The President will participate in a photo opportunity with winners of the FIRST Robotics Competition -- they are from Baltimore, Maryland.



I want to know who's from Baltimore? MOE is from Wilmington Delaware
FIRST is in New Hampshire
FLL winners are from Indiana and the FVC winners are from New Jersey.

MOE's 2007 Robot is also in attendance with the teams and they will have tons of pictures and video of the whole event.
I hope that this will be one of many meeting with the high ups in the government about the amazing things that FIRST dose for this country and now other ones also.

[Andrea's Mom]

Just received a phone call from my Andrea, team captain for MOE. The meeting with Mr. Bush took place this afternoon around 4:30. She said that Mr. Bush is very warm in person and reassured her when she stuttered as she gave her 1 min. presentation. Matt Grusemeyer drove the robot while Mr. Bush operated the gripper arm and hung a ringer on the top rack. It was hard to hear her with the team chattering excitedly in the background, but the general impression was that the meeting at the White House went well. MOE presented Mr. Bush with one of their infamous green jersey's with "Bush" printed on the back. Andrea says Dean and Woodie were very impressive. There were professional photographers there so I hope someone will be able to post the pics here to share.

This evening they will participate in a session with members of Congress where they'll do some presentations and show off Moezilla. I believe the FLL and VEX award winners will be there as well.

Wow! What an incredible day for everyone involved in with FIRST teams!

I'm off to see if I can find any pics or video on news channels.

[Cooley744]

Wow! I can't wait to see video footage of the president driving a FIRST robot! Should be exciting.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Kyle

I want to know who's from Baltimore?

Team 768 and team 116 are also at the capitol today doing demos. I belive it was origionally assumed that 365 was not going to have their robot so those 3 FRC teams will be demoing. The news brief you saw was probably a mistake, but 768 is from baltimore.

[Athleticgirl389]

Congrats to all 3 teams on being able to partake in this awesome event!!! I am jealous I love the President haha. But very many congrats on getting this opportunity

And yes, that would be awesome to hear the President pump his fist and yell "GO MOE!"

Wow. The fact that Bush drove a robot and supports FIRST has totally changed my opinion about him (ok, mostly...).

Righton! This is the kind of publicity we need!

[whytheheckme]

Can't WAIT to see this footage. This sounds like it was an awesome event.

Also, if MOE or anyone else that was there has photos to upload to CD-Media, that would be cool (an 'in-siders' look!)

Jacob