Team leaders, we’re a couple of days out to the North Star Regional and 10,000 Lakes Regional presented by the Medtronic Foundation. Here are some final details.
Load in
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.
Bus and trailer parking
Please see the online directions for load in for maps for bus and trailer parking
https://mnfirst.org/minneapoli
Machine Shop
The machine shop is the Mechanical Engineering Student Machine shop and is located a few hundred yards from each venue. A map can be found here (https://mnfirst.org/minneapol
Team Seminars
These seminars are hosted by teams and, as you can see, cover a variety of topics. They are usually quite informative. The location is the Williams Club Room on Thursday. The Club Room is on the 3rd floor above the Oak Street Lobby and is accessed by the elevator inside the lobby door.
12:00pm – 12:45pm Event Ambassador training
This is for students who sign up to be event tour guides
1:00pm – 1:45pm Core Values (Team 1816, 2177, 2239 and 5172)
This presentation will discuss core values, describe a student-driven process for developing your own team’s set, and provide a perspective from several team that have done this exercise.
2:00pm – 2:45pm Diversity and Inclusion (Team 2500 ahd 2491)
Discuss ways for team to attract more students and understand the issues that may be preventing students from joining your team.
3:00pm – 3:45pm Mentor Roundtable and MN Robotics Coaches Assoc.
This is an informal session covering a variety of topics that are important to team mentors.
4:00pm – 4:45pm Dead Battery Project (Team 3313)
All women (students and mentors) are invited to have a conversation about the Dead Battery Project which focuses on sexual harassment.
5:00pm – 5:45pm Team Organization and Communication
They will give an overview of how KnightKrawler is organized including our meeting schedule, use of Scrum, and full team meeting agendas. In addition, they will talk about how they use Slack as our primary way of communication with email used for large announcements.
Team choir
There is traditionally a team choir to sign the national anthem. Practice is Thursday at 4pm by Pit Admin in the 10,000 Lakes pits.
Invited Guest Ambassadors
Teams are invited to have one student per team sign up to be a Regional Event Ambassador. Ambassadors will be called upon throughout the event and immediately after the Invited Guest Breakfast on Friday at 8:15am. Please register at Pit Admin. Training will be on Thursday at 12:00pm noon in the Williams Arena (10,000 Lakes event location) Club Room. The Club Room is on the 3rd floor above the Oak Street lobby with access is via an elevator at the end of the concourse going to the lobby.
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 (I’m assured there is still time) 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
Regards,, Mark Lawrence
Chairman, MN FIRST Regional Planning Committee