Greetings Teams:
During the FRC Kickoff, Dean Kamen offered a homework assignment to every student, every mentor, and every sponsor. The text of the
assignment follows below. To see and hear the assignment, visit: http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2007_kickoff.php (Dean’s quote starts at about 42:20 of the broadcast)
To help you with the assignment, FIRST has created “Dean’s Homework Forum” in FIRST Forums, where you will find instructions, access
directories of elected officials, copy suggested wording for your introduction, and see quotations from Dean, Woodie, Governor Lingle
and others that you might choose to use in your invitation.
We also have set up Forums for each state so you can post your invitations and responses. Go to “Dean’s Homework Forum” at
http://forums.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?f=293 to get started, or to post invitations you already have sent!
If you want to post your invitation and don’t already have a FIRST Forum’ username and password, click “Register” just below the FIRST logo. And if you have questions about the assignment, you can post them in the Homework Questions forum.
Go Teams!
Text of Dean’s Homework Assignment
"Every student, every mentor, every sponsor….you all have a Senator or two, you all have a Congressmen, you all have a Governor. We all have a President. I’m asking every one of you to write to these people, to call these people, and say "We have an unbelievable program. It’s been around 15 years. We’ve taken out the risk, we’ve taken out the bugs. It works. We’ve proved it’s scalable. It has an unbelievable impact. It’s incredibly cost-effective. And you need it, the country needs it, and the world needs it. You need to support us. And the best way is to show them, not tell them.
"You’re going to, specifically, go to all of these people, and invite them to a regional. There’s no excuse any more. There are 8 or 9 or 10 every weekend in March. And you’re going to invite these people to the Championship in Atlanta April 13 and 14th.
"You’re going to send us a copy of your invitation – that’s how I’ll know you did your job. We’re going to publish them – the best ones – on our website. And you’re going to send us their answers, and we’re going to publish their answers, too.”