FTC teams who want to learn Java programming or learn more hardware and electronics techniques may be interested in these summer camps being offered by a group of FTC and FLL teams: Furious Falcons FTC 9920, The Clueless FTC 11212, Inspiration FTC 11128, Abrick Cadabrick FLL July 5-14: JAVA PROGRAMMING for FTC Java language fundamentals Java objects and classes Basic object-oriented programming Hands-on Java Projects for FTC application August 7-10: FIRST TECH CHALLENGE (FTC) Standard hardware assembly Non-standard hardware machining Hand-on works with machining tools Electronic design and driving system "Team Clueless and Furious Falcon have taught Summer camps at All Star Academy last year successfully which some of your teams have helped out. They are expanding the program this year including Team Inspiration. I can vow how successful their programs are. Some of the Inspiration team members had taken the class last year, and it really helped Inspiration team to perform this season. Coach Olivia has multiple FLL Southern California championship teams in her coaching credit. Under her and Shilin's coaching team, they went to the FIRST World Championship twice by being the champions at Legoland and is also heading over to European championship this year. You already know that they are very competitive FTC teams also. Inspiration team had successfully guided six Meadowbrook Middle School FLL teams and their coaches. The six Meadowbrook FLL teams won four first places and two championship titles in their respective qualified tournaments during the 2016-2017 seasons. Two also placed in Southern California championships. We are pretty happy about our first FTC experience also and will share our journey. Please help to spread words of this Summer FIRST training program. It is also part of our FTC/FLL teams fundraising activities and spreading the news of FIRST. Thank you for the consideration." -- Alex Szeto, Coach Team Inspiration For further information, see the attached pdf, go to https://www.all-staracademy.com/robotics-and-more or call Coach Olivia 858-204-0170 for questions.
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FIRST® Australia is pleased to invite teams to apply to compete at the Asia Pacific FTC Invitational (API) from the 14th – 16th of July in Sydney, Australia. API is an annual event with teams competing from around the globe. The vision of this event is to encourage students to network internationally, make lifelong friendships, and learn from each other. This event will be held at Macquarie University in the Sydney suburb of North Ryde (20 minutes northwest of the city).
Team registration is $250* AUD per person (attendees may include team members, mentors, parents, siblings and other team supporters). This will include lunches (14th - 16th of July) and dinners (14th - 15th of July) for attendees. There are many hotels in the North Ryde area. Some suggested accommodations can be found on the FIRST Australia website under DDU & API Lodging Options. Team Application and Registration Payment Deadline: 31 May 2017 Apply Now! Updated information will be posted on the www.firstaustralia.org website as it becomes available. If you have questions, please contact Tom Johnson via email at tom.johnson@mq.edu.au * Registration via methods other than credit card will incur an Administration Fee of $10 AUD per person. Also FYI, Macquarie University has offered scholarships to FTC graduates in the past. There are a number of US students from FTC who are studying engineering there. The RoBowties team 6137 participated in the Asia Pacific Invitational (API) in 2015 for Cascade Effect and won Captain of the Finalist Alliance and PTC Design Award. Approximately 30 teams participated in that API, and about 10 were from the United States with the rest mostly from Oceania and Asia regions. If anyone is interested and has questions, email the RoBowties at robowties@gmail.com SouthWest Robotics in Science Education (SWRiSE) is organizing FTC, FRC, FLL, SUMO, Botball, and Follow The Line contests in June at the San Diego County Fair. Register your team by Friday, May 12. https://sdfair.com/contests/summer-of-robotics/
Summer of Robotics schedule Saturday, June 3: FIRST® Robotics Contest Saturday, June 10: FIRST® Tech Challenge Contest Sunday, June 11: Follow The Line, SUMO matches, and FIRST® LEGO® League Contest Saturday, June 24: Botball® Robotics Contest from Steven Chen, FTC 11128 Team Inspiration Captain ---------- Forwarded message ---------- We are happy to announce that with your help AB 624 passed the Revenue & Taxation Committee last week. It is currently in the Appropriations Committee. Teacher support letters will help move this bill to the next stage. Please ask your teachers for support of this bill. You are welcome to forward the email below with attachments when asking for support. Thank you! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dear Teacher, AB 624 is a robotics tax credit bill that Assemblyman Brian Maienschein is carrying. This bill would create a 50% tax credit for donations (up to $10,000) made to “STEM clubs that participate in robotics competitions” aka Robotics Clubs. The intent of this bill is to help support STEM education and get our students as involved in these fields as early as possible so that they feel encouraged to pursue careers in the growing STEM fields. (Refer to attached fact sheet) The California Teacher Association (CTA) has taken an “Oppose” position on this bill although they believe in its intent, simply because tax credits take money out of the general fund, which they are big defenders of. Their position is very standard even though the bill is limited to a $1 million cap. I know that sounds like A LOT of money, however it is in fact a very small piece of the general fund, and seeing as the tax credit is 50% of donations, this would mean up to $2 million could be donated to our clubs. Attached is also a support letter for this bill. If you could fill out the support letter and scan and email it to nadra.mamou@asm.ca.gov , your support will show the Appropriations Committee (the committee where all bills dealing with any type of fiscal amount are heard and often killed) that this bill would in fact support robotics clubs and students STEM education. This is time sensitive so we need these letters emailed to Nadra ASAP or by Tuesday, May 2, 2017. Thank you for supporting this important bill that will give proper funding to robotics clubs. Warm regards, Steven Chen FTC Team Inspiration Captain Madalyn Nguyen FTC Team Inspiration Outreach Ambassador Tracy Nguyen, O.D. FTC Team Inspiration Outreach Liaison
"The Mars Society is sponsoring a Student Mars Art (SMArt) Contest, inviting youth from around the world to depict the human future on the planet Mars. Young artists from grades 4 through 12 (ages 8 to 18) are invited to submit up to three works of art each, illustrating any part of the human future on the Red Planet, including the first landing, human field exploration, operations at an early Mars base, the building of the first Martian cities, terraforming the Red Planet and other related human settlement concepts.
The SMArt Contest will be divided into three categories: Upper Elementary (grades 4-6), Junior High (grades 7-9), and High School (Grades 10-12). Cash prizes of $1,000, $500 and $250, as well as trophies, will be given out to the first, second and third place winners of each section. There will also be certificates of honorable mention for those artists who don’t finish in the top three, but whose work is nevertheless judged to be particularly meritorious. The winning works of art will be posted on the Mars Society web site and may also be published as part of a special book about Mars art. In addition, winners will be invited to come to the 20th Annual International Mars Society Convention at the University of California, Irvine September 7-10, 2017 to display and talk about their art. Mars art will consist of still images, which may be composed by traditional methods, such as pencil, charcoal, watercolors or paint, or by computerized means. ..." The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2017, 5:00 pm MST. For entry details, see http://www.marssociety.org/mars-society-to-hold-intl-student-mars-art-contest/ FTC 11128 Team Inspiration recently notified us of a California Assembly Bill being co-sponsored by Assembly Member Brian Maienschein. His office would like to have support letters emailed by April 10 (tomorrow!), and we have a sample letter your team or coaches and mentors can use to show your support. From FTC 11128 Team Inspiration Hello Robotics fans, families, supporters: Wouldn't it be nice if we could get more donations & sponsorships for our robotics club? AB 624 Robotics Club Tax Credit will give companies incentives to support robotics clubs. This bill will help to encourage more donors to contribute funding to students' interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Link for bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB624 (it will be amended to reflect community clubs) Assembly Member Brian Maienschein has solicited Team Inspiration's help in coordinating support for AB 624. So far, the bill sponsors have only received about fifty (50) letters of support. They need our help. Please join us in writing support letters for this bill. You are welcome to use or revise the attached sample letter to reflect your support. It is important to have these support letters emailed by April 10, 2017 before the committee reconvenes for a hearing on this bill. Email the signed support letter to Nadra.Mamou@asm.ca.gov Please forward this email to your friends and colleagues. We need as much support as possible from parents, neighbors, community members, and companies. Let's help to pass this bill so our robotics teams can get proper funding! Thank you for supporting this proposed bill. Warm regards, Steven Chen - FTC 11128 Team Inspiration Captain Madalyn Nguyen - FTC 11128 Team Inspiration Outreach Ambassador Tracy Nguyen, O.D. - FTC 11128 Team Inspiration Outreach Liaison Below is a sample letter you can download and customize, as well as one from the Million Women Mentors group.
and more background from FRC 1622 Team Spyder Thank you everyone for helping, If you did not know this bill was the brain child of FRC team 1622 Team Spyder from Poway, CA with the support of Poway Unified and Ramona Unified School District. In the effort to propose this bill, Team Spyder students met with the author Assemblymember Brian Maienschein for support, received support from Poway Unified acting Superintendent Mel Robertson and Ramona Unified School Board President Rodger Dohm whom meet with Senator Joel Anderson's staff gathering Joel's support to coauthor the bill. Through these efforts, Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, a Poway High School graduate himself authored AB624 Robotics Tax Credit Bill to Robotics Teams with up to $10,000 tax credits available to individuals and corporations. FRC Team 624 gathered many signatures with the attached form from the San Diego and Ventura Regionals. The bill is going through committee's. Representatives from FRC team Spyder 1622 went to the Sacramento State Capitol to testify in committee, but unfortunately the committee was canceled that day to review the bill. We also went to Chairman Assemblymember Ridley-Thomas office to show support. If you can gather more signatures and follow the instructions in the email below (Nadra.Mamou@asm.ca.gov) and attached, we would greatly appreciate any efforts that Robotics Teams can do. This is a direct support to every FLL, FTC and FRC team in California. It is not limited to FIRST Robotics in that it can help all Robotics Clubs. Please spread the word and gather as many signatures that you can! Helping to gather signatures in behalf of FTC 11128not only supports FRC 1622 Team Spyder, but also all California Robotics Teams! Thank you, Rodger Dohm Poway High School - Instructor CTE STEM Teacher on Special Assignment Engineering Academy / Pathway Coordinator Team 1622 FIRST Robotics Coach / Advisor rdohm@powayusd.com (858) 748-0245 x.5307 There are 5 teams from San Diego FTC League going to the World Championship in Houston this month.
At least three of them have GoFundMe campaigns so if you'd like to help them out, take a look at their campaign pages: https://www.gofundme.com/TeamInspiration https://www.gofundme.com/ftc-10092-first-championship-trip https://www.gofundme.com/ftc-4216-rise-of-hephaestus-worlds LeBron James, Adriana Lima, and other celebrities are now appearing in ads that try to tell students the same message that FIRST tells us - in STEM fields, everyone can go pro! "In a spot launching during March Madness, we see NBA star LeBron James explaining that there are only around 2,880 professional football players, a mere 850 pro soccer players and 624 pro basketball players. And, amazingly, there are only 5,800 fashion models. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, supermodel Adriana Lima and aging soccer star David Villa underline that there isn't a need for more of them. Instead, there are 9 million jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics." ... as explained in this CNET article: https://www.cnet.com/news/lebron-james-tells-kids-become-scientist-not-nba-player-verizon-ad/ In this "making of" video, we can see how often students want to be a pro celebrity but don't realize that STEM careers can be interesting and financially rewarding: The advertisements are to help promote the Innovative Learning Initiative and a grant program from the Verizon Foundation. The actual video ad sponsored by Verizon is here: |
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