Baltimore-Aug 3-5-Volunteers needed

[RoboMom]

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Baltimore City Public School System - Summer STEM Academy - Vex Robotics Competition

COMPETITION LOCATION: The Maryland State Fairgrounds, 4-H/-Home Arts Building, 2200 York Road, Timonium, MD 21093

• Tuesday, August 3, 2010-COMPETITION SET-UP Times: 8 am to 6 pm

• Wednesday August 4 & Thursday August 5, 2010 COMPETITION Times: 8 am to 6 pm


CONTACT: Baltimore City Robotics - baltimorecityrobotics@gmail.com

About the Competition & Summer STEM Academy in Baltimore City:
- The BCPSS Summer VEX Robotics Competition is a volunteer-run event. We are recruiting the support of local companies and service organizations to join the dozens of already committed volunteers to fill the 100+ positions.
- Up to 200 teams and more than 500 rising 7th and 8th graders from Baltimore City Middle Schools will attend.
- The event is the culmination of 6 weeks of summer school. The students are in class for math and literacy in the morning and are then applying these skills to build robots in the afternoon.

Examples of Volunteer Roles:
Set Up and Tear Down
Team Queuers and Runners
Practice Field Manager/Assistants -
Registration Table
Game Referees
Information Table
Judges .
Field Reset
Announcers
Field Manager
Help Desk

[RoboMom]

Still recruiting volunteers so consider coming to join the fun!

[Foster]

I'm all set with my (slimming) striped shirt! Looking forward to seeing all those roboteers compete!

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Foster

I'm all set with my (slimming) striped shirt! Looking forward to seeing all those roboteers compete!

It will be great to see you! We have another key vol coming from PA to lend a hand.

[RoboMom]

Now that was fun!

Two days of non-stop robot action. Hundreds of excited middle school students (and since Northrop Grumman donated shirts for all the teams and volunteers-hundreds of middle school students all wearing the same blue shirt which matched the blue bins for every team-quite the visual!!!) Great judges, dozens of awards, and some innovative robots. Wonderful volunteers including the loyal group from Maryland; those who traveled from out of state including from DC, PA, MA and CT (and VA-sorry Blake!!); Team 1727-REX; and the Sparks 4-H VEX teams-all working to pull off a huge ambitious effort. Lots of TV and press coverage featuring great kids.

I was proud to be a part of it!

http://wjz.com/local/Building.Robots...2.1844822.html
http://www.wbaltv.com/video/24526126/index.html
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/edu...,3028502.story

[Foster]

I was proud to be a part of it!

Me too!

Lots of cool robots showing you can build a modified protobot to play Round Up. Some interesting hangers (single and double action, one on the high bar), some de-scorers, oh sorry Blake, ring removers and some different ways to score rings.

Tons of summer school kids turning into roboteers.

And the usual Suspects of help at the event, but the big award of the day went to Jenny for her volunteer efforts for the event. Well deserved!

It also solidified my belief in table top sized robots. 2-3 kids building a robot is a great way to inspire robotics. I had a number of teachable moments, I need to get a shirt that says "I'm Not the Ref Right Now" that I can wear as I suggest strategy and mechanical upgrades.

A few very strange ref calls (robot is hanging, battery is loose, falls off, does that count as a hang?) and trying to control the dynamic of "I'm trying to hang, sorry he was there and fell while I lifted under him).

Big Kudos to the planners for having the vision to build 250+ robots across a summer school session and compete with them the last week of school.

Only minus that Cotten Eye'd Joe was not on the play list either day.

[Cheerleader1073]

Wish I knew about this earlier! Well, there's always next year