Team Leaders, the North Star Regional and the 10,000 Lakes Regional presented by the Medtronic Foundation are quickly approaching. Here are some helpful links:
10,000 Lakes Regional presented by the Medtronic Foundation (https://www.firstinspires.org
North Star Regional (https://www.firstinspires.org
FIRST Minnesota website (https://mnfirst.org/minneapol
Volunteers Needed!
There are still open volunteer positions that need filling. Please have your team mentors or parents contact Laurie Shimizu (lfshimizu@gmail.com ). Here is the list of needed volunteer positions in 10K Lakes:
10,000 Lakes:
Field Reset
Safety Advisors
Pit Admin Support
Practice Field
Spare Parts
A mentor to assist as Student Ambassador Coordinator
Here is the list of needed volunteer positions at North Star:
Field Reset
Practice Field
Queuing
Safety Advisors
Team Lunches and General Food and Drinks
The University’s arenas have 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.win
Note that this document does not specifically say ‘food’ because the rules apply also to district events.
Team lunch forms can be found here (https://mnfirst.org/minneapol
Load in/out
Note the location for your event for 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/minneapoli
A driver must stay with the vehicle at all times. 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. Also at load-in, Junkyard Robots will be directed to a holding bin.
Scouting for All!
For teams looking to be competitive, scouting is a key part of their strategy. Last year, Falcon Robotics (5434) piloted sharing our scouting information with all teams at the competition. Overwhelmingly teams were supportive of our efforts. At NORTHERN LIGHTS and 10000 LAKES this year we’d like to take SCOUTING FOR ALL! to another level by engaging other teams in our efforts. It is our hope that this will reduce the strain on any one team for scouting, increase the accuracy of information, and make the competition more fun for everyone. We are looking for teams interested in helping us scout using a system integrated with google forms. Teams that participate will have access to the raw spreadsheet of all scouting information in realtime at the event. On Saturday of the event we’ll be sharing a filtered version of this scouting with all teams. To participate teams will need 3-6 students able to scout every match with smartphones. For more details, contact Jason Engbrecht at engbrech@stolaf.edu.
SWEet Eats
The Robettes (2177) are teaming up with the U of M – Twin Cities chapter of Society of Women Engineers (SWE) to host this FIRST Ladies networking luncheon. Female students and mentors can relax, meet other women in FIRST & STEM, and chat with the SWE members about what it’s like in STEM fields beyond high school
When: Friday, March 29th, 12pm noon
Where: Mariucci Arena Concourse
RSVP by March 22 by emailing SWEetEats@therobettes.com with the following info:
• Team Name
• # of Ladies Attending (student/mentor)
• Any dietary restrictions we should be aware of
For more info, please see (https://mnfirst.org/wp-conten
Space is limited, so RSVP soon!
Thank you,
Mary and Fae
Outreach Leads
Team 2177 The Robettes
U of MN Robotics – You’re Invited!
University of Minnesota Robotics (formerly known as GOFIRST) would like to invite teams to our first Spring Social on March 27th, from 5pm-9pm! One part food, one part educational, one part social, and all parts fun, this event is geared towards showing students what their futures could look like in STEM as well as offer some time to meet new friends and hang out with old ones before the start of the competition. The evening will start with dinner and presentations from several professionals in the STEM fields who will share their educational and professional journeys. This will be followed by social time where we will provide games and a movie. We will also have a display about University of Minnesota Robotics where students can learn about other robotics opportunities as well as how to continue with FIRST after graduating high school. This event will be held on campus at the University of Minnesota and teams can come and go as they need to. We look forward to seeing you there! More information including event cost, location, and how to RSVP can be found at (https://docs.google.com/forms
Thanks!
Laura Irvine
Regards, Mark Lawrence
Chairman, MN FIRST Regional Planning Committee