Hi! I’m Pattie. My son Tyler has founded team 1110 in California and 1505 in Utah - Josh mentioned him in earlier posts. Actually I have been seriously involved myself. We tried starting a FIRST team last year but it just didn’t happen - so this spring we dragged the welding instructor to LA with us to see team 1110 compete in their second year. He was absolutely sold on it!
ANYHOW - wanted to jump in here and say ‘HI’ 
If there are any teams start up in the Utah or Idaho area, we’d be very happy to mentor as we’re close enough and have experience starting up new teams.
Team 1110 will be mentoring us to get us back up to speed on details because we took a year off - but I think we’ve got solid enough basics to help someone in the area. Josh told us about this website - see he’s already helping us out! Thanks Josh!
You all take care and I’ll pop in again to say hi.
Pattie
XPLittleSki, we’re not alone anymore!
I don’t have a recommendation either way on the animation - I’ve seen first year teams do it and I’ve seen second year teams not. Our thoughts are that since its computer stuff it’ll keep the computer programmers entertained waiting for the robot to be done enough to test the software - learning something they can be proud of when they submit it. Wouldn’t it be cool to be an animation wizard making video games!