NDIA San Diego Chapter invites you to join them at their Exhibit Booth October 13-15, 2017 from 10am to 4pm in the Innovation Zone. Bring your robots and other STEM related Projects and participate in San Diego Fleet Week!
Location:
Broadway Pier & Port Pavilion
1000 N Harbor Dr
San Diego, CA
92101
 
The "window" for displaying your robots will be from 10am to 4pm each day.   We'll have booth space for you to set up your displays and literature as well as room to exercise your robots.
 
This is a great  opportunity, like Gold Coast, for your teams to meet engineers in the high tech field and get a first hand look at what technology is being developed for the military and homeland defense.
Please let me know if you can attend and on what Day and Time Period as soon as possible? I will send you further instructions to participate.
For three days the Port Pavilion Building will become home to the Innovation Zone. This space will host a combination of STEM and high-tech focused displays geared to attract students, service members, their families, and the public. There will be numerous vendor booths and interactive displays focused on new and emerging technologies to encourage participation in STEM education programs.
View the action at Broadway Pier, all along the San Diego region waterfront, from Coronado, the Embarcadero, Harbor and Shelter Islands. Ship tours, military static displays. The Innovation Zone will be available and FREE to the public.
For more information on the Fleet Week events click on the link: https://fleetweeksandiego.org/events/ 
V/R,
Lillian
 
-- 
Lillian Maestas 
VP Business Development 
Knowledge Made Solutions, Inc. 
Veteran Owned Small Business 
619-708-1180 (voice)
lmaestas@knowledgemade.com 
www.knowledgemade.com

The Houston Champions: 724 Rednek Robotics Wun, 4216 Rise of Hephaestus, and 8651 Wait For It have won at the FIRST Festival of Champions! It was to be a best 3 out of 5 matches, and the Houston alliance won the first two matches. However, in match #3 an opponent's ball got stuck in the top of Rise of Hephaestus robot for almost all of Teleop - thus leading to a 260 point penalty! So going into match #4, it was 2 to 1. 4216 tried again during autonomous to pick up one of the red balls that 724 had already shot into the vortex, but unfortunately the re-shot ball missed the vortex. These teams had collaborated long distance by Skype and tested meshing their autonomous routines by running them simultaneously on their home fields! In the end, they were able to score more balls into the vortex and thereby get their 3rd win and take the championship! Great performance teams, and congratulations to 4216 Rise of Hephaestus for representing us in San Diego FTC so well!

Enjoy your visit to Dean Kamen's house this evening!  For those of us at home, we can take a peek in the first minute of Dean Kamen's Slingshot water purifier video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klHo_bvyDoA

And what 3 months of collaboration might do: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI96gCev5V8

Hello Fellow Robotics Enthusiasts,

Please Join Us for 2017 Navy Gold Coast – August (Tues) 22nd & (Wed) 23rd, 2017

Place:      Town & Country Convention Center
                  500 Hotel Cir N, San Diego, CA 92108

Time:       Aug 22nd : 10am-5pm
                Aug 23rd  : 10am–3pm
We'll have booth space for you to set up your displays and literature as well as room to exercise your robots. We can handle about five teams at a time with about 5 team members with each  robot.
Why Attend: This is a great opportunity for your teams to meet engineers in the high tech field and get a first hand look at what technology is being developed for the military and homeland defense.
The interaction for the kids is a real learning experience; it's a friendly crowd and the kids and their machines are always a hit.
What Next: Reply to Lillian Maestas Lmaestas@knowledgemade.com

FTC 11128 – team Inspiration volunteered to mentor Team Benin, A French-Speaking West Africa Nation team, to compete in the FIRST Global Challenge in the US with teams from 163 countries.  The mentoring is via skype and email by the Inspiration team members and coaches.
 
Team Benin emerged 7th of 163 countries and the only African country on top ten ranking of the FIRST Global Challenge.
 
Team Benin is now inspired to expand their robotics program to as many students as possible in their country.
 
Inspiration team will help to solicit support to provide robotics material for Team Benin to expand their program.  If you or someone can help, let me know.  Alex Szeto, alex.d.szeto@ngc.com

For those that were watching the news or live feed, you may have caught that Ivanka Trump attended an exhibition match at FIRST Global Challenge this morning. Members of FTC 3595 Schrodinger's Hat and FTC 6037 W.A.G.S. Robotics make up Team USA and can be seen in these pictures:
​https://twitter.com/F1RSTglobal/status/887382754685575173
https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/887315148163211264

The inaugural FIRST Global Challenge is now over, and not all the scores and information is posted yet, but their Twitter account has been announcing the awards:

Sophia Kovalevskaya awards for International Journey go to Teams Madagascar, France, and Nigeria

Dr. Mae Jemison awards for International Unity go to Teams United Arab Emirates, Australia, and Canada

Rajaa Cherkaoui El Moursli awards for Courageous Achievement go to Teams Oman, Afghanistan, and South Sudan

​Zhang Heng Awards for Engineering Design go to Teams Mexico, Mali, and India

Ustad Ahmad Lahori Awards for Innovation in Engineering go to Teams Spain, Indonesia, and Latvia

Albert Einstein Award winners for FIRST Global International Excellence are Teams Lebanon, Tunisia, and continental team Oceania

FIRST Global Grand Challenge Awards go to Teams Armenia, Poland, and continental team Europe

Videos of the event can be found at their YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTSVzV2M_ZH-dY1yAz5fiZw/videos

Day 2 video (Tuesday July 18)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddh0kF-DbSk

article about the team from Afghanistan that was denied visas twice but eventually got permission to attend:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/asia/afghanistan-girls-robotics-visas-trump.html

Congratulations to all who participated or volunteered at the event!

FIRST Global Challenge is the newest of Dean Kamen's competitions - it is specifically directed at international participation with one team from each country. In addition, there is one team from each continent (except Antarctica) for 6 Continental teams. The Challenge is inspired by the 14 Grand Challenges of Engineering, and this year the Challenge theme is based on providing access to clean water. There are 3 robots on each side, and the 6 robots compete on a 6 meter x 4 meter field. For more info, see their website:
http://first.global/

There's one more day of competition left - TUESDAY, July 18:

• 8:30 AM EDT (12:30 PM GMT) to 5:30 PM EDT (9:30 PM GMT) Competition Rounds 4-6
• 5:40 PM EDT (9:40 PM GMT) to 7:00 PM EDT (11:00 PM GMT) Closing Ceremony

​Here is a short description of the 2017 Challenge:

Monday July 17 was Day 1 of the competitions - here is some of the action (link will only play at Youtube):
https://youtu.be/mBjBKuf1mks?t=11m20s

If you'd like to see the opening ceremonies from Sunday July 16 with an Olympics-like parade of countries and the address by Dean Kamen, here it is (link will only play at Youtube):
​https://youtu.be/vo_F1J4MfWg?t=15m21s

Congratulations to 4216 Rise of Hephaestus for winning PTC Design Award, Captain of the Finalist Alliance, and 3rd Inspire at the 2017 FTC Asia Pacific Invitational (API) in Sydney, AUSTRALIA!!

For those of you who missed the weekend event and would like to catch some of it, the livestream is now available on Youtube. They mute the microphone between a lot of the action so don't be surprised to hear nothing even though the video is running.
​
Day 1 of 2017 FTC API
​
Day 2 of 2017 FTC API

After winning PTC Design and Captain of Finalist Alliance, Rise of Hephaestus receives 3rd Inspire!
​​The timed links are not working properly - go to 8 hr 6 min to view

From Pam Meistrell of the Rancho Santa Fe FTC teams:

Hello Gauss, Descartes, Euclid & Turing Leagues!
 
If any teams from our FTC Leagues this past season are interested in a final competition opportunity (Velocity Vortex) before everyone takes off for the summer, there is a low-key event at the Del Mar Fairgrounds Sat, June 10. Our school is bringing the field setup/components.  $25 fee per team includes a pass for each team member into the Fair – what a  deal!   No stress – just FUN!
 
So far there are eight FTC teams:  Inspiration, Green.Griffins, RSF Intergalactic Dragons, RSF Logitechies, RSF Singularity, RSF NewBees, Correia Middle School, and Point Loma Senior High School.  Did I forget anyone?
 
Saturday, June 10
10:00am-4:00pm (might finish earlier)
4th Floor Grandstand at the Fairgrounds
 
Registration deadline has been extended to this Friday 5/19.  It might still say the 12th, but it’s been extended.
https://sdfair.com/contests/summer-of-robotics/   
The Robotics Division number is 5001, and the class number for FTC is 002.
 
If you have any specific questions you can contact Samantha Hamilton at SouthWest Robotics in Science Education shamilton@swrise.org