Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Teams

FIRST General Forum
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As Mark McLeod noted in an earlier post, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is making its presence felt in FIRST. Per recent FRC registration data, there are 47 teams, including 14 that will be 2007 rookies, listing EMKF as a sponsor.

Thirty of these teams are registered for the new Kansas City Regional – and rumor has it that EMKF will be sponsoring the regional itself. Another six EMKF teams are registered for St. Louis, five for Colorado, three for Midwest, two for Boilermaker, and one for Lone Star.

An article on the EMKF website lists FIRST Robotics as one element of their long term commitment to advance K-12 math and science education in the KC area. The overall financial commitment so far is more than $22 million.

It would be great to hear more about the impact that EMKF is having on K-12 math and science generally, and on FIRST Robotics in particular, from members of the sponsored teams and the KC regional volunteers themselves. Are any of those folks here on Chief Delphi?

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I’m from Lee’s Summit High School Team Driven. Having the Kauffman Foundation as a major sponsor is amazing. Having them sponsor so many teams seems to have created communities within itself, not to mention bring up old rivalries and new connections. Last year we had one school taking up the FIRST challenge, now we have all three high schools. Our sponsor Mr. Nazworthy (nazman) is also on here… but in general its been an amazing experience. We sent off 5 students to UMR, 1 to Purdue, 3 to MU. I’m not sure about where everyone else went.

As for EMKF, last thing I knew they were sponsoring the regional and the kick-off event.

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WOW, 30 teams from the same sponsor at one regional? That is unheard of.

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It’s what corporations do when you make them believe their investments will be worth it

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