Middleton Parents, Students, and Sponsors:
GO RAYS!
The following are the topics that will be cover in this email:
1. Field Construction Day
2. Volunteer Committees
3. SMTA Outreach Opportunity
4. Build It Day — October 22, 2011
5. FTC Tournaments
6. Judging Sessions at Tournaments
7. Training Information: Free RobotC Training from CMU
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1. Field Construction Day – We had a great turn out for the field construction day last Saturday. I would like to thank all of the students and parents that helped. We made great progress and completed the construction of all of the field elements. The FTC field is now set-up in the robotics classroom with crates, racquetballs and even the bowling balls. We also made great progress on cleaning up and organizing the tools and parts in the robotics room. Thanks again for a great effort on Saturday.
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2. Volunteer Committees – This is a second request for parent volunteers to help each of the following teams. Cassandra Moore has volunteered to help the Fund Raising team. Please send me an email if you would like to help on one of the following committees:
a. Team Sprit and Marketing – This team will be lead by Karin Howard and she will also represent the parent contact for FTC team 4997. Therefore, we need a parent from FTC 1369, FTC 3846, and the FRC team.
b. Fund Raising – This team will be lead by Maria Negron and she will also represent the parent contact for FTC team 1369. Therefore, we need a parent from FTC 3846, FTC 4997, and the FRC team.
c. Community Outreach Coordinator – This team will be lead by Toni Lupo and she will also represent the parent contact for FTC team 4997. Therefore, we need a parent from FTC 1369, FTC 3846, and the FRC team.
d. Tournament Coordinator – I do not believe that we need an overall lead for this committee. However, as we get closer to a tournament, it is important that each team is properly prepared. The mentor will be focused on getting the robot ready and will need help making sure the engineering notebook is complete, all team members have transportation, team spirit material is ready, and all of the equipment is ready. Therefore, we only need a parent from each of the FTC to be responsible for helping the team get ready for a tournament.
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3. Middleton Build It Day Event – The Middleton Build It Day has officially been announced to the Florida FTC community and it will be held on October 22, 2011, 9am to 3pm. This is also an opportunity for our teams to continue working on their robots and work with other FTC teams from around Florida.
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4. SMTA Outreach Opportunity – James Moore contacted Kathy Freriks last week about an outreach opportunity with the local chapter of the Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA). This organization is interested in supporting the Middleton Robotics Club with mentors and financial aid. Carson, Kathy, and I attended the beginning of their meeting last Wednesday and there is now significant interest in us participating in one of the upcoming meetings. I would like to thank Mike Smutko, Glenda Pinckney, and James Moore for setting up this meeting and helping support the Middleton Robotic Club. The following are links that will provide more information about the national SMTA organization and the local chapter:
http://www.smta.org
http://www.smta.org/chapters/chapters_detail.cfm?chapter_id=15#chapter_calendar
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5. Tournament Dates – The other thing we did on Saturday was select the tentative tournament dates each of the teams. The following is the list of tournaments each of teams would like to attend. However, we will not know if we get our preferred tournaments for a couple of weeks. The good thing about hosting a tournament is we get early registration and we have a good chance at getting our preferred tournaments:
Team 1369
November 12, 2011 at Hillsborough High School in Tampa
December 10, 2011 at Spruce Creek High School in Port Orange (near Orlando)
January 21, 2012 at Seminole High School in Seminole
Team 3846
November 19, 2011 at Lyman High School in Longwood (near Orlando)
January 21, 2012 at Seminole High School in Seminole
February 4, 2012 at USF Polytechnic in Lakeland
Team 4997
November 12, 2011 at Hillsborough High School in Tampa
January 21, 2011 at Seminole High School in Seminole
February 4, 2011 at USF Polytechnic in Lakeland
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6. Judging Session at Tournaments — Last year, Florida experimented with a new judging process that included sending a video to the tournament host about 10 days before the tournament. It appears that we will again be submitting videos before the tournaments to support the judging process. I will need help from the kids and parents to prepare the videos. Team 1369 and 4997 will have to prepare a team video at the beginning of November and team 3846 will have to prepare a video at the end of the first week of November.
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7. Training Information: Free RobotC Training from Carnegie Mellon University – This week’s Middleton Robotics Newsletter training tip is about the new training material being offered by CMU. The Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Academy is offering a free ROBOTC training course for FTC teams. This course covers how to program a TETRIX robot and also highlight the new features found in ROBOTC 3.0 such as the Samantha Wireless System and 3rd party sensors. Register for the training course here: www.cs2n.org/partners/ftc/
