**FIRST EMAIL**/Autodesk Award for Excellence in Design Competition Opens!

[Mark McLeod]

**FIRST EMAIL**/Autodesk Award for Excellence in Design Competition Opens! 2011 Rendered Kit of Parts Available January 10!
------------------------------

Greetings FRC Teams:

With another successful Kickoff fresh in our minds, we are pleased to share with you the following tools and resources to help you design a successful robot. We also want to give you detailed information about the Excellence in Design Award Sponsored by Autodesk.

Due to site maintenance and enhancements for our FIRST teams, our website will be down January 7th – 9th. Starting Monday, January 10, you can access the 2011 season Kit of Parts designed in Autodesk Inventor Professional 2011 through the section of Autodesk’s Education Community dedicated to FIRST, as well as access over 30 FREE software products by visiting www.autodesk.com/first.

New this year - It will be easier than ever for students, teachers and mentors to register since we no longer require you to have a .edu email address. All you need to do is simply follow these easy instructions:

• Fill out FRC Registration form
• Confirm Region
• Register for the Education Community
• Gain Access to the Community

Don’t forget to take advantage of the free copy of Autodesk® Inventor® Professional which you received in your 2011 FRC Kit of Parts. This can be up and running on as many computers as your team needs. To download the free software, follow these instructions:

• Complete the Education Community registration process at http://autodesk.com/firstregistration. Note that each member of your team will need to create an individual account.
• Once logged in, proceed to the Download Center: http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center
• Select the version of Inventor you installed from the drop-down menu.
• Click the “Get Serial” button to generate your serial number.

Important: Your serial number is good for one activation only. Please direct other members of your team to http://autodesk.com/firstregistration to sign up and receive their own unique serial numbers

Please let us know if you have any questions or need assistance by emailing us at first@autodesk.com.


Go Teams!

Autodesk