Greetings Teams:
In response to numerous requests from teams and mentors, FIRST and five of our partners have special offers for the 2007 FRC season. Since the last email blast was sent announcing this exciting development, two more suppliers have joined the early release program. Please read on and follow the links for more information.
Since Autodesk’s sponsorship began in 1992, Autodesk has contributed approximately $72 million in software donations for FIRST Robotics team use. As the numbers of teams have increased throughout the years, their software donation has grown significantly. Autodesk needed to find a way to distribute the software to the teams in a more scalable model that utilized their available resources and budget. They are excited to offer electronic software downloads starting this FIRST season. These downloads will allow Autodesk to get the software out to the teams faster and more efficiently.
This year, they are donating Autodesk ® Inventor 11 Professional and the newly released Autodesk® 3ds Max 9 to teams. Each team will be able to download up to 10 single seats of Autodesk® Inventor 11 Professional and 5 single seats of Autodesk® 3ds Max 9. The newly developed website will launch in mid-November and will host these downloads. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks!
National Instruments, a dedicated and valued supporter of FIRST, is expanding last year’s LabVIEW and data acquisition pilot program to include all teams. All FRC event-registered teams are invited to apply. Selected teams will receive the 8.20 full development system version of NI LabVIEW along with an NI 6009 USB data acquisition device (DAQ) before the 2007 Kickoff. Please click here for more information and to apply online: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5440
intelitek is a committed supporter of FIRST and we’re happy to have easyC available for download to teams again this year. Any event-registered team interested in familiarizing themselves with this helpful programming tool is invited to download easyC for FRC. easyC for FRC is a licensed product and intelitek has granted one copy of easyC for FRC to each team. The free download on has a seven-day trial period for users to evaluate easyC for FRC. All veteran teams will use their easyC for FRC license from last year to access the software. All rookie teams need to email intelitek’s customer service department at [email protected] for their team’s license. Any questions or concerns regarding easyC for FRC licensing should be directed to intelitek’s customer service email address. Additional seats of the easyC for FRC can be purchase at www.shop.intelitek.com. For your team’s free download, please click here: www.intelitekdownloads.com/FRC2006.
Machine Science, a non-profit organization dedicated to engineering education and new friend of FIRST, is donating a fast, easy way for FRC teams to get up to speed writing C code for PIC microcontrollers - the same family of chips found in the FRC Robot Controller. Each event-registered FRC team is eligible for a free user account. Their on-line system provides step-by-step instructions for completing low-cost, breadboard-based microcontroller projects. Students just log in and start programming! For more information about Machine Science and access to your team’s free account, please click here: http://machinescience.org/firstoffer.html.
The FirstFuelCells.com pilot program, Green Machine, has received great responses! Registration is currently filled and closed for the year. If you are an FRC team and interested in this program for the 2008 season, please email FirstFuelCells.com ([email protected]) with a “Letter of Interest” that would serve to expand and include more teams for next year’s competition.
Go Teams!