**FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to Week 6!/Important Reminders

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Teams:

Welcome to Week 6! This is the final week of FRC Competition Events for the 2011 Season! Please review the important reminders below:

2011 Post Season Awards Order Form: The 2011 Post Season Awards Order Form is now available here: http://usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/...nt.aspx?id=440 . Teams may use this form to order additional trophies, pins, etc. Please note that orders will not be shipped until AFTER Championship.

Team Rosters and Consent & Release Forms: We must remind everyone to print out your Team Roster! When you go to register at your Initial Event, you will be asked to produce your Team Roster along with any hard-copy Consent & Release forms attached to the Roster itself. Without these items, you will not be allowed to register for your event!

Remember: Even if none of your student team members filled out an Electronic Consent and Release form, you must still print out your Team Roster and physically pencil in the names of the students who have hard-copies of the form. If you cannot pencil in all the student names in to the space allotted on the printed Team Roster, you may attach an additional sheet with the rest of the student names. Also, don’t forget that each Mentor on the team must have completed a hard-copy or electronic version of the Consent and Release Form in order to gain entrance in to the event!

Do you have everything? As you’re packing up to go to your initial event, keep in mind that there will be no replacement Shipping Documents available. If you forget your Shipping Documents (i.e., Bill of Lading for shipment to your next event), you will need to find a way to retrieve them before the event is over in order to avoid paying out of pocket for the shipment. If you have lost your shipping documents, please make arrangements at the shipping desk in the Pit area to pay for your shipment home.

Other Event Reminders:

• Don’t forget your Safety Glasses! Everyone is required to wear Safety Glasses at all times in the Pit area. When you are packing up to go to your Event(s), please remember to pack Safety Glasses for every Student and Mentor who will be in the Pit area. FIRST has only a limited supply of extra Safety Glasses on hand, so we appreciate your efforts to supply enough Safety Glasses for your entire team!
• Respect boundaries in the Pit area! Please be respectful of your fellow FRC teams by being aware of how much space your team is using in order to allow adequate workspace for your neighboring teams, and to ensure overall safety for everyone. We appreciate your Gracious Professionalism™!
• Lost and Found Items: All Lost and Found items get packed on our trucks and come back to FIRST headquarters. All lost item requests will be addressed after the Championship Event in April (when all trucks are back in Manchester, NH).
• Website Award electronic certificates: All Regional Website Award winners and teams who earned the Website Excellence Award will be sent electronic certificates post Championship. These are for placement on winning teams’ websites.

Championship (CMP) Qualification and Registration Process:
Please visit: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nt.aspx?id=944 to see a full listing of the merit based qualifying criteria.

Registration process:

1. New this year! If your team qualifies at a Competition Event to attend the CMP, you will automatically be moved to the CMP Waitlist the Monday following your competition.

2. On or before Tuesday @ 5 PM ET following your event, call FIRST Finance to make payment arrangements 1-800-871-8326 ext. 450 or ext. 415. Payment arrangements can be made by Check, Credit Card, Purchase Order from school or Commitment Letter from Corporate sponsor. One of these forms must be received by the Tuesday following the qualifying Regional by 5pm ET. Commitment Letters and Purchase Orders must be paid to FIRST by check or credit card prior to Friday, April 15, 2011.

3. IMPORTANT - If you do not register by the Tuesday deadline, your team will be removed from the Waitlist and ineligible to register for the CMP (i.e., your spot will not be held past the Tuesday deadline!).

Making CMP Hotel Reservations:
Please go to the Steele Meetings website at http://www.firstchampionshiphousing.com/ to make your housing arrangements.

IMPORTANT I: Each season there are teams who make CMP hotel arrangements in the hopes they will qualify at a regional event. Teams that do this do so at their own risk. You will be responsible for any cancellation fees incurred per Steele Meetings Policies. If you have any questions, please contact Steele Meetings directly for any further clarification at:first@steelemeetings.com.

IMPORTANT II: DO NOT ship your robot to the CMP event unless you qualify at your regional event! Teams not registered for the CMP will be responsible for all costs associated with shipping their robot to and from the CMP. Only teams officially registered to attend the CMP will have their shipments home covered by the FedEx Donation.

Go Teams!