A Call for FIRST Volunteers

[jerryandt]

Much of FIRST is run by volunteers.  Teams are usually organized by a high school teacher.  They are too busy to actively pursue mentors for the team.  you must take the initiative. you should contact a team, and to find your way to a meeting and learn what the team needs. A team will welcome your help.

The teams do advertise their presence.  However, it can be difficult to find a team, unless you are persistent.  There is no HR department trying to fill positions. The FIRST website contains much of the information on teams.

http://www.usfirst.org/whatsgoingon.aspx

 As a last resort, you should find and attend a competition.  you can then talk directly with many teams.  However, the build season will have ended at that point.  It is during build-season that teams need mentors.  I regret having missed the 1999 season because i waited for a response.

jerry waechter

team-79 

[nathand]

Is the online training session mentioned here available online somewhere?  Is this a one-time event or downloadable content?  Has it already taken place?  I attended a local pre-kickoff introduction, have been in contact with the organizers of the local kickoff event and agreed to do a LabVIEW introduction, but it would help if NI would make available the training materials that they would like used.

[Ben]

Hi All,

I am not personally involved in the FIRST project since two of my peers are taking the lead with this volunteer initiative. I have exchange e-mails with the people that are leading this effort within NI. I have sent them an e-mail letting them know they should update this thread to try and clear up some of the questions. The time is short and the holidays may delay a response to my e-mails but NI is seriously interested in making this FIRST thing catch on. I believe there is a kick-off being held in Cleveland OH in the first two weeks of January, so let hope we can get everyone that is interested pointed the right direction at the right time.

Take care,

Ben

[TCPlomp]

Does anybody know of FIRST teams in the Netherlands?

 The site doesn't  give much

Ton

[Ben]

I have been told we will get an update soon, so...

"Please standby for an important message from our sponsor."

Ben

[Stephanie B]

FIRST Supporters,

My apologies for the delay responding here! We have certainly not forgotten you and your desire to volunteer! Couple of things to update you on:

• All of the emails sent to frc2009@ni.com have been replied to. If you haven’t gotten anything yet my sincerest apologies. We have been pretty swamped preparing for the season! You can try emailing it again if you haven’t – we’re still monitoring it! (nathand – I can’t find you or your email!)
• You can watch a webcast of the 2009 FRC Control System here: http://zone.ni.com/wv/app/doc/p/id/wv-1168
• To find teams in your area, you can go here: http://usfirst.org/whatsgoingon.aspx  but it appears no teams or events in the Netherlands.
• For our recommended slide deck to use at Kick Off, go here: ftp://ftp.ni.com/outgoing and download KO Master Slide Deck. You can also find the slides called KO Volunteer Training here. 

If you’re still interested in getting involved, all of the 1,687 teams will continue to need help throughout the season (can you believe 40,000 high school students are about to dive head-first into a 6 week, robot building challenge with LabVIEW and cRIO?!?!?!). So let us know and we can help you get in contact with a team, or just do what you’re already doing – watch the forums at ni.com/first!

Thanks again for your support!

Stephanie

Message Edited by Stephanie B on 12-30-2008 02:35 PM

[nathand]

Thank you for making those presentations available.  I think I now have the information I need, and I re-sent my email in case there are future updates.

[Ray.R]

I will be catching up on all the postsings that you provided (thanks).

I will be mentoring a team in Ottawa.  It should be both fun & interesting.

Add me to the list.  I will send an email address for this activity.

RayR

[Stephanie B]

Just an update - the game this year is entitled Lunacy. The biggest change is that the floor is covered in a very slick polymer to simulate driving over ice/ low gravity like on the moon! Download the game rules and information here or watch a game simulation here.

This is sure to be a true test of graphical system design and so I again thank you for helping your local teams or for monitoring the forums! 

Thoughts on the game?