Team Leaders, we’re a week away from the Great Northern Regional.  Here are some final details for planning purposes.

General Food and Drinks

The Alerus Center has vendor contracts that prohibit the public from bringing their own food and drinks into an event.  This applies to all teams and spectators.  Please don’t try to “sneak in” food or drinks.  To enforce this rule, robot inspectors will be monitoring load in.  Please encourage your students to bring a water bottle.  Beverage coolers will be placed around the venue for refilling bottles. Concessions will be open. Please review event rules with your team members:

https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2019/EventRules/EventRulesManual.pdf

Note that this document does not specifically say ‘food’ because the rules apply also to district events.

Seminars

Team seminars will be on Thursday in Ballroom 4.  Here’s the schedule:

12:00pm – 12:45pm Event Ambassador training
1:00pm – 1:45pm Core Values (Team 2177 plus others)
2:00pm – 2:45pm Diversity and Inclusion (Team 2500)
3:00pm – 3:45pm  Mentor Roundtable and MN Robotics Coaches Assoc.
4:00pm – 4:45pm  Dead Battery Project (Team 3313)

Ambassadors

We are looking for students (up to 2 per team) to act as tour guides during the event. Sign up will be at pit admin.  Students meet for Orientation and Walk-through in Ballroom 4 at 12:00pm until 12:45pm on Thursday. Students will be on call throughout the event. The tours for Invited Guests will be 12:45pm on Friday after the VIP luncheon, also, in Ballroom 4.

Load in/out

Load-in hours are Wednesday night 6:00pm to 9:00pm and Thursday 7:45am to 8:30am.  Directions can be found here:

https://mnfirst.org/the-great-northern-regional/great-northern-load-in/

A driver must stay with the vehicle at all times – no excuses. This is a courtesy to other teams. When curbside drop-off is complete, the vehicle must be moved.  Only 5 people (one must be an adult) will be allowed in the pit for setup.  For safety purposes, robots will be directed to a holding area so that they are not in the pits during pit setup.  Once a team’s pit setup is complete, the robot can be retrieved from the holding area and returned to the team’s designated pit.  Teams are not allowed to work on their robots until 8:30am Thursday morning.  The pits close promptly at 9:00pm on Wednesday night.  Teams loading-in on Thursday morning will follow the same procedure beginning at 7:45am.  When a team’s pit setup is complete, the setup crew must leave the pit area and not return until 8:30am on Thursday morning.  Please tell your students and appropriate mentors about this procedure.

Railcar Competition

There’s still time to build a railcar!  Remember, this year railcars need to have eyebolts on front and back and must be able to be pulled by an engine (i.e., they need wheels that roll).  For pictures of last year’s cars and details on this year’s build, please see this website (and you can still register even though it says Feb 15th is the deadline):

https://mnfirst.org/the-great-northern-regional/great-northern-railcar-competition/

Regards, Mark Lawrence
Chairman, MN FIRST Regional Planning Committee