pic: The President meets MOE

[Mr MOE]

First off, a HUGE Thank you, goes out to all of the FIRST personnel, who made the Washington DC visit a success. MOE 365 worked most closely with John Marchiony, Chief Marketing Officer, and Carol Kauffman, Regional Director. It took many people to organize and execute this event.

MOE's day started with a bus ride to DC on a gorgeous blue-sky-and-sunny day. We took a short walk to the Capitol where we had some photos taken. We then joined other FIRST teams being recognized, FVC 3053, "Occam's Engineers" from Mendham, New Jersey and FLL 1677 Access 9" from South Bend, Indiana for lunch at Union Station.

Then it was off by bus to the White House. MOEzilla and the FVC and FLL bots needed to be in DC this past Friday for security inspections. The bots spent their weekend in an office not far from Laura bush's office.

After meeting up with the FIRST delegation, led by Dean Kamen, Woodie Flowers, Paul Gudonis, John Abele, and Dave Lavery, we had about an hour to wander freely around the Cross Room / Grand Foyer, Blue Room, Red Room, Green Room, East Room, and State Dining Room. These are awesome rooms with many Presidential portraits and great views of DC out of the windows. We took loads of photos.

We spent about 30 minutes getting our large MOE group organized for the photo with the President (Thanks, Carol Kauffman!!!). He only spent a total of less than 10 minutes with us, so everything had to be timed and efficient. As you can see in the photo attached, student team members wore MOE jerseys and adult mentors wore business attire with MOE green highlights (ties, scarves, jackets, etc.). We spent about 10-15 minutes working with the White House staff to determine if and when we could do the MOE cheer.

The President finally arrived after a brief meeting with FIRST leadership. He was very friendly and down-to-earth, admitting his incident with a Segway within minutes of our interaction. First were the photos. At the end of the photos, we did the MOE cheer. He was supposed to be ready for it, but the amplification of the sound in the room caused him to jump. It was great.

After that, our Chairman's Award presenters (Andrea, Will, and Eric) described what our team has done to earn the award. Our competition team (Matt, Morgan, and Kevin) then grabbed a keeper tube and drove the bot over to the President. In the fun photo that is on Getty, the bot stops short of the team. The students are looking up because our arm is raised and is literally inches away from the bottom of the "very expensive" chandelier that Dave Lavery mentioned. Our driver got inches away from hitting it two times. Needless to say, our team and the White House staff were holding our collective breath.

The President then got a chance to take control of our arm/gripper controls. He collected a tube, raised the arm all the way up, and (with help from Morgan, our arm driver) released the tube on the top spider leg of a mini-rack we built for the event.

Andrea Agra, our Team Captain, then presented President Bush with a MOE jersey with "Bush" printed on the back.

The President was very congratulatory of the teams and what FIRST has done to further the interest of science and technology in our youth. He also was impressed with the level of technlogy FIRST robots in general contained. Though our brief interaction, he seemed very genuine and friendly.

Many photos were taken of the event, but video and audio were not allowed. So, the best you can hope for are the fun photos that are being posted and some other stories.

It was a terrific day. Thanks FIRST.

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Carol

Security as you can imagine was extremely tight. The only items allowed in were car keys, wallet, and cameras. No purses, lipsticks, combs, or anything pointed such as pencils.

What? What did you do about tools? (Or is your robot so well behaved that it doesn't make a mess on the carpet )

Also, did the Secret Service have to inspect the robot before allowing it to enter?

[M. Mellott]

Great stories!! Congratulations, MOE--you made us all proud to be a part of FIRST!

[Nica F.]

I'm very impressed! You guys are an amazing team and truly are a role model for other FIRST teams!

Congrats again on being this year's Championship Chairman's Award winners!

(and Congrats to the Vex and FLL teams as well!)

[Carol]

Originally Posted by Gabe

What? What did you do about tools? (Or is your robot so well behaved that it doesn't make a mess on the carpet )

Also, did the Secret Service have to inspect the robot before allowing it to enter?

Yes, the Secret Service did want plenty of time to inspect the equipment. All the robots with limited tools and minifields were driven down to the White House on Friday by a mentor, Lou Rosanio (the FVC and FLL teams shipped their robots to us, we used our own FLL and FVC fields). Lou said they were very interested in them - beyond security concerns - but the funniest part is that MOEzilla didn't fit in the storage area they designated, so he spent the weekend in the First Lady's office! Unfortunately we didn't get pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I'm in the process of posting some that I have with me, so check in a couple of hours.

[ChristinaR]

MOE, you guys truly deserve all the recognition you have received. I have yet to encounter a team with as much zeal and GP as you all. Thank you for helping bring more attention to FIRST and its participants (not only with all your acheivements, but with those BRIGHT shirts!).
Congratulations and here's to many more successful years!

(And extra props has to be given to the driver who almost took out the chandelier- it made for some excellent photos. )

[Schnabel]

Originally Posted by dlavery

There are a few others that I will post when thye get cleared. Several members of the official White House press corps were also in attendance, and are starting to post their own photos. Some of the more interesting ones from Reuters can be seen here. Although the best one so far is here on Getty Images (we can't post these directly on CD, since they are copyrighted, but we can link to them). The President's expression is priceless, as Moe-zilla was approaching rather quickly at the time, and had just missed clipping a VERY EXPENSIVE crystal chandelier by about 1/2" during the approach.

-dave

I think the look on the face of the woman next to the President is the best because you can see the panic in her eyes.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by Schnabel

I think the look on the face of the woman next to the President is the best because you can see the panic in her eyes.

The Women next to Bush is Carol Kauffman (FIRST Regional Director) and the student is Andrea Agra the 2007 MOE student caption.

[AV_guy007]

"Mission Accomplished"

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Carol

I'll get some more pictures up later today. Thanks to 768 and 116 for "hosting" the reception at the Cannon Office Bldg. (attached to the Capital where a lot of Congress have their offices) after the White House visit. And thanks to 768 for the special buttons they made for us!

Unfortunately no congressperson showed up, although many sent staffers. I was told that they are rarely in DC on Mondays.

Hi Carol,

Actually, I was told there were 6 members of Congress, including one Senator.
Many were at a funeral yesterday in California.

The Director of the National Science Foundation was there. As well as many high level representative from the Patent Office, NIST and the Dept. of Homeland Security.
There were also many important staffers there. Many came after being visited by the FLL and FVC teams during the morning.

Love the White House pics!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Cooley744

WOW. Now if we could get the president to show up at nationals...that would be AMAZING!

Let's see how long this lasts.
If we could get the president to show up and do his job. Now that would be AMAZING!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by dlavery

loading photo ...

GREAT JOB MOE!!!

[nonother]

Originally Posted by Carol

I'll get some more pictures up later today. Thanks to 768 and 116 for "hosting" the reception at the Cannon Office Bldg. (attached to the Capital where a lot of Congress have their offices) after the White House visit. And thanks to 768 for the special buttons they made for us! Unfortunately no congressperson showed up, although many sent staffers.

We invited our Representative, Congressman Frelinghuysen, and he came for the first 45 minutes or so and really loved watching the robots - in particular FRC. I also know that a representative from New Hampshire and a senator from Hawaii showed up. Our congressman told us that the reason a lot of people could not come was because of the funeral for a congresswoman in California that afternoon. And there were certainly a good number of staffers. I'd say it was largely succesful.

[Mr MOE]

Thanks for the shout out of congratulations to MOE, Occams Engineers, and Access 9 in response to our FIRST-sponsored trip to the White House.

I must add that, we are representing the thousands of FIRST teams out there, who worked as hard as we did during the build season and throughout the year. To every student who had to miss even more sleep to study for an exam at 2am, to every mentor who missed that dinner with the family, to every teacher who felt the guilt of leaving his/her class in the hands of a substitute while you travelled to an out-of-town regional, we are representing all of you.

It's a shame that you could not be there with us in person. Every dedicated FIRST team member deserves the experience that our teams had. With any luck (and lots of hard work), FIRST will make this White House recognition an annual one. I hope that teams, currently working so hard getting the word out to their communities, inspiring young children, mentoring other FRC and FVC, FLL, and JFLL teams, interacting with their government officials, and awakening whole new areas around the world to FIRST, will have their day in the sun and be recognized, too.

But, if for some reason that doesn't happen, the beauty of it all is that it is still worth it. To have a senior graduate, who has assembled a drive train when she hardly knew what a gear was as a freshman, who has gone from hardly talking to anyone to being your team's Chairman's Award presenter, or who has learned 3D Studio Max on his own and is now rendering with the best of them, is the best recognition your team and program can have. These individual accomplishments are what will change our culture.

Thank you teams for all your efforts this past season and previous years. Many of us truly love and treaure this part of our lives. Find ways to celebrate in your corner of the globe. Recognize people who made a difference. Make memories. Have fun.

The FIRST White House celebration was a recognition for ALL FIRST teams and the significant change you have all brought about.

Bravo!

[Alpha 997]

Originally Posted by Budda648

I have a feeling the faces that President Bush made in some of those photos may end up on Leno or other late night tv shows...

It'll be on The Daily Show alright.