Good Afternoon Teams,
As 2009 winds down, we’re putting the finishing touches on the plans for Kickoff. We have most of the pre-recorded sections of the kickoff broadcast ready to go and we will start converting the SNHU gym into a sound stage Wednesday, January 6th. If you can’t make it to an official kickoff site to view the broadcast, you can tune into either NASA TV or the NASA webcast from home. Information is available here http://robotics.nasa.gov/ and the final details will be added to that site next week.
The winning Safety Animation has been chosen and will be shown during the Kickoff broadcast. The top six finalists were: Teams 61, 100, 226, 342, 375 & 1625. My congratulations and thanks to everyone who submitted an animation.
The decryption test will be sent out in an email blast December 30th and the encrypted sections of the manual will be posted next week . I strongly advise teams to download these sections before the kickoff so you’ll be ready to go the moment the encryption code is revealed.
We’re packing and shipping out Kits of Parts this week and everything is in motion to get 1,757 teams and 1,757 kits of parts to 58 kickoffs all at the same time. We will then ship remaining 54 kits to teams who paid to have their kit delivered to their location. Yes, that’s a total of 1,811 FRC teams competing this year. I expect things will get really interesting, especially with the game the GDC has planned for you.
I want to wish you an exciting (and healthy) 2010.
10 days until the 2010 Kickoff
See you there!

