Community Outreach

[laurenlacy]

Might I again echo comments above and say DEMOS!! I love it when teams find ways to do outreach that really nails down the INSPIRATION and RECOGNITION part of FIRST. While soup kitchens and other activities are great for team bonding (they are actually a BLAST!) at least in my area there were enough volunteer groups doing that sort of thing. I like the teams that do outreach that gets the community excited about science and engineering. I will echo the others in that the best place to look is in CD-Media, but some just off the top of my head...

- Volunteer for and coach FLL teams... create a pipeline to FRC! Get younger kids excited!
- Show off your robot at an elementary school science fair... make it a yearly thing! Kids seriously get so excited about this stuff!
- If your state has an annual Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics type summit every year, get over there! Represent your team, represent FIRST.
- Create an education program for your school if it doesn't already have one--and try to get it implemented! (Robotics in the classroom, etc)
- Basically do anything and everything you can to show your community (be it your town, your state, whoever you want) your robot, any awards you've won, and what it is that you actually do. Host an annual open house, invite your teachers to travel with you to a competition... who knows what might work!

Just be sure to make the decisions as a team and whatever you do HAVE FUN! with it. You will have the most successful outreach if it's something people on your team are excited about... so get excited!

-My $.02