Kickoff is coming your way

Good Afternoon Teams,

The first shipment of kits of parts headed to the most distant local kickoffs will leave our warehouse today.  The challenge is getting palette loads of equipment to all of the local kickoff locations in time while accounting for weather delays and accommodating holidays and business closings.  If all goes well, these kits will spend six business days in transit.  If things don’t go well, these kits will have a small cushion of time to make up for snow in the Rockies or other shipping delays.  More kits of parts shipments will go out tomorrow, then Friday, then Tuesday and so on until all 74 local kickoff sites have kits ready and waiting on the morning of Jan 7th. 

Plan ahead.  Veteran kits will be about 100lbs.  Rookie kits will weigh approx. 147lbs.  Also, remember that only an adult team mentor may sign for the kit of parts.  Your team will be asked to sign in at the kickoff when you arrive, you will be handed your team’s kit of parts receipt and someone trustworthy needs to hold onto it all the way through the broadcast.  The broadcast, by the way, is scheduled to begin at 10:30AM ET.  During kit distribution you will be asked to open a sealed tote and confirm that you have received  your Kinect.

What to bring:

• Print out a copy of your team roster from TIMS EVEN IF no one from your team has completed the online Consent and Release form.
• Bring signed paper Consent and Release forms for everyone in attendance who hasn’t signed the online Consent and Release form. The Student electronic student consent and release form may be found in STIMS. The Adult Consent and release form may be found in TIMS.  The paper copies may be found on the usfirst.org website.
• Only bring the total number of people you said you were going to bring.  (Parents count as people too.)  Most local kickoffs have space issues.  Can’t remember how many people you said would come from your team?  Your main and alternate contact can log into TIMS and check the kit and kickoff section of the team summary page.  Want to bring more people?  Be sure to check with your local kickoff coordinator.  You can find contact information by clicking on your kickoff name on the local kickoff page of our website.
• If you know you have a long walk from the kickoff to your car you may want to bring a hand truck (see kit of part weights above)
• Make sure your vehicle has enough room to transport the kit home.  The Kit WILL FILL most car trunks (start empty) and be too big for some smaller models.

Want to know what’s in a rookie kit vs. a veteran kit?  The list is now available online

Had a change of plans and can’t make it to your local kickoff?  There’s still time to ask another team to pick up your kit of parts.  Talk to the team, complete the surrogate kit pick up form and get it to FIRST as soon as you can.  Directions are at the bottom of the page here

Can’t make it to a local kickoff at all?  Last year, NASA broadcast the kickoff over their TV channels.

17 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Some odds and ends

Good Morning Teams,

Have you ever volunteered at a FRC event?  Do you want to volunteer again?  While teams are preparing for Kickoff, Volunteer Coordinators are hard at work planning the 2012 FRC Events.  If you want to be one of the amazing, much appreciated, invaluable volunteers at any of our upcoming competitions, go to www.usfirst.org/vims and register.  Pick the events you want to support, indicate your preferences for the kind of help you can provide, and the Volunteer Coordinator will be in touch.  It’s the hardest fun you can have.

Are you coming to the Manchester kickoff workshops?  Don’t forget to check the 2012 Workshop page. The abstract and presentation information has been updated and the schedule has changed slightly.  If you can’t make it to Manchester, keep checking the website.  We hope to have links to the workshop recordings live during the Kickoff weekend.

Did you miss the most recent TIMS deadline?  Maybe this will help.  The deadline to get your team information into TIMS so that we can include it in the Program Books handed out at FRC events has been pushed back to December 19th. 

Jon Dudas has written another guest blog post well worth checking out.  This one is on the Afterschool Blog. 

And this just makes me smile. 

24 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Go take a look

Good Morning Teams,

FIRST Choice  is open for viewing.  Never heard of FIRST Choice?  Visit my Oct 11th blog.

Not every item is visible right now.  Some will be added as we finalize details with suppliers, and others will be added after Kickoff (we don’t want give away too much information regarding the game or the rules).  However, now is an excellent time to familiarize yourself with the site before the season starts in earnest.

Watch the kickoff broadcast closely for more details about FIRST Choice and if you have questions, please don't hesitate to post on the FIRST Choice forum.

25 days until Kickoff
See you then!

That’s a wrap

Good Morning Teams,

A number of important Email Blasts have been sent to team main and alternate contacts in the past week.  Dean sent a message about the second generation e-watt saver bulbs, and PTC gave teams access to the software they have donated for the 2012 season.  If you haven’t seen these emails, remember you can find all Email Blasts, Rookie Alerts and Blog posts on the FRC Team Email Blast Archive page of our website. 

Also new on the website, the Regional Event detail pages (click on the event name to open the detail page) now include hotel information.

And in case you missed it, Jon Dudas, the President of FIRST was featured as a guest blogger on the innovate-educate blog. 

FRC staff (and a few key volunteers) spent this past weekend at Dean’s house filming segments of the Kickoff for the January 7th broadcast.  Dean was very gracious and moved his helicopter so we could fit a full competition field in his hanger.  (Some people have garages, some people have hangers.) 

Set up started on Friday (it takes a lot to construct a full field) and filming took up most of Saturday and a little time on Sunday.  We filmed a segment on the Kit of Parts featuring Kate and Collin, several members of the GDC recorded segments about the game on the field and I delivered my remarks in Dean’s front lobby standing in front of his two story steam engine.   A few people will be filmed off site, and Dean has yet to add his remarks, but we have a great deal of the tape we need for the Kickoff broadcast in the can.   The production company will work their magic over the next few weeks and we’ll have a Kickoff broadcast ready to go on the 7th no matter what the weather throws at us in January.

31 days until Kickoff
See you then!

FRC Game Hint #1

Good Morning Teams,

Rockwell Automation has again agreed to generously donate components we need for the 2012 FRC season. Check it out.  You may find it very interesting.

36 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Not the game hint

Good Afternoon Teams,

On Monday I announced the new Manual format and am delighted by the number of people who have gone to check it out.  For those of you who asked, yes, a pdf of the manual will be available in an encrypted version before Kickoff so teams may download it in advance and avoid the kickoff rush.  For all your other comments and concerns, please visit the Online Manual section of the Beta Test Forums because the staff involved in this project are monitoring those pages and are answering questions there.

As your team plans for build season, (and if you haven’t started to plan for build season, now would be a very good time to do so) make sure you build in a cushion for unexpected delays and setbacks.  FRC is not planning to grant extensions to the build season for weather delays.  FRC is a microcosm of the real engineering experience.  Just like in the business world, your local climate is one of the many elements you must factor into the equation as you set your schedule.   Plan now, how will your team handle bad weather, unexpected power outages, cold and flu season, delayed shipments and anything else that might crop up during build season?  Businesses have to adjust to unexpected setbacks in order to meet their deadlines.  How are you going to respond?”

As your team plans for competition season, you may want to visit the Steele Meetings/FIRST website before you make any hotel arrangements.  http://www.steelehousing.com The program offers best in class pricing and value added amenities. Plus, your participation in this hotel program will help support the local FRC regional events. 

Tell everyone you know, FTC is looking for a full time engineer. 

37 days until Kickoff
See you then!