Last night, the team had a fun, informal meeting with a lot of food, some board games and some FTC driver practice. There were a lot of alumni there -- many of whom are on break from college -- and it was nice to have everyone together again.
Before everyone gets together tomorrow morning to watch the 2013 kick off broadcast, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about some of our sponsors and the great opportunities these partners make available to our team.
Our team meets in a building on the Microsoft campus thanks to the generosity of several researchers at Microsoft Research. There, we have access to the hardware prototyping lab they oversee, storage space, practice space, meeting rooms and a kitchen. Additionally, we have many other Microsoft employees as mentors for all aspects of our team and without their support, the team wouldn't be nearly as engaging and competitive as we've become.
Additionally, the time that these mentors volunteer with our team helps us to fundraise. Microsoft's Giving Campaign is a fantastic corporate outreach program that encourages MS employees to become deeply involved in community activities. It's awesome.
Washington State's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) offers grants to FIRST teams throughout Washington. They've provided our team with tremendous, ongoing support for our FTC and FRC programs. Institutional support of STEM programs is a pretty spectacular thing to have in our state.
Boeing provides grants to FRC teams across the country. We've been generously awarded such grants for several years and it allows our team to compete around the region. By competing more often, the team improves much more throughout the season that we would if we competed only once and we are able to give more students the opportunity to travel with the team, to contribute to our success on and off the field, and to experience the camaraderie of other students on FIRST teams from other schools.
We're excited to welcome Automated Metal Technologies (AMT) as a new sponsor for the 2013 FRC season. AMT has already been a tremendous asset to our team, helping one of our three FTC teams to build a custom robot from sheet metal in the Fall and helping us to manufacture a sheet metal robot chassis in the summer. I am very excited for opportunities that working with AMT provides to the team. Sheet metal construction offers FRC teams the chance to design and build strong, lightweight structures that are more difficult to achieve using more traditional construction techniques.
Finally, I want to acknowledge all of the other mentors that help our team to be successful. Without them, even with the backing of the biggest, most successful corporations in the world, we wouldn't be able to do any of the great things we do each year. Thanks, y'all.
Good luck in 2013, everyone. :)
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