You and your team are invited to be a part of something new and spectacular!
Saturday, September 29th, at the Wisconsin Expo Hall at the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds, as part of HarvestFair and the Milwaukee County Fair, will be the 2nd annual RoboFest. RoboFest is more than just an off-season FRC event - alongside the competition will be FLL, FTC, and Vex demonstrations and interactive exhibits as well as robotic and STEM related activities and exhibitors from local organizations, universities, and hobbyists. Last year 10 teams from the Milwaukee area provided two days of exhibitions. This year we are hopeful to draw enough teams (24) to run a full one day tournament. Teams are also invited to stick around and exhibit their robots on the fairgrounds on Sunday, September 30th as well (there will be no playing field). There are numerous affordable hotel options in the area as well as a housing unit on the fairground that can sleep 8 in a room for $80/night. Please inquire if interested in this option. As an exhibitor, your team members will gain free entry into the fair grounds, however, there is no outside food allowed onto the grounds so you will need to use the on-site food vendors or there are some fast food options across the street.
Teams would be welcome to drop off their robot and setup their pit on Friday evening, September 28th (exact times forthcoming). Saturday’s schedule will look approximately like this:
8:00am doors open for teams to enter and setup
9:00am gates open to the public / practice matches begin
10:00am welcome
10:15am matches begin
12:15pm lunch break
1:00pm matches resume
2:30pm matches conclude / alliance selections (all 24 teams would play)
3:15pm elims begin
5:30pm elims finish / closing
6:00pm event ends / field teardown
Sunday’s exhibition schedule will be a shorter day, ending approximately 3:00pm. Stay tuned for details concerning other special events on Sunday.
If your team would like to be a part of the 2012 RoboFest competition, please reply to Kevin Kolodziej (kevin.kolodziej <at> gmail.com) and indicate if you would be dropping off on Friday evening, how many people approximately will be attending, and if you would be interested in exhibiting on Sunday. Competing teams will be asked to supply a $100 entry fee to cover the costs of field transportation, game pieces, and bleachers for field seating (if fewer teams attend and less seating is required, it is possible a portion of your entry fee will be refunded). Teams will also have the opportunity to sell fundraising items, however, any teams interested in doing so will need to split a $300 “vendor fee” required by the fairgrounds (for instance, several teams could agree to share profits of any lightbulbs sold and agree to split the vendor fee). The final request of participating teams, which is what makes this event unique, is to have an interactive “exhibit” as part of your pit or as part of a separate display. This could be LEGO (FLL or non-FLL) robots, Vex or FTC robots that children could drive and interact with, coloring pages about robots / technology, an off-season demo robot, etc. RoboFest is a family event with children who we can get excited about science and technology - lets give them something to remember!
If you have any questions, or would like to register your team, please contact me, Kevin Kolodziej, at kevin.kolodziej <at> gmail.com.
Thanks, and hope to see you there!
Kevin Kolodziej
Team 1675 & WI Regional Planning Committee