Here’s an opportunity for StormBots to volunteer to help with FIRST LEGO Leauge ad FIRST Tech Challenge:

Dear FIRST LEGO League Oregon Community:

Congratulations on a exciting Hydro Dynamics season! I’m Cathy Swider, FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon Programs Manager for ORTOP.

With the conclusion of our FIRST LEGO League Oregon Qualifying Events and the State Championship this past weekend, some FIRST LEGO League teams or FIRST LEGO League team members, may be looking for the next FIRST program challenge. If team members will be in 7th - 12th grade in the 2018-2019 season, they are eligible to compete in FIRST Tech Challenge.

FIRST Tech Challenge provides students the opportunity to expand on their engineering and programming skills as well as leadership and teamwork skills at an affordable cost. FIRST Tech Challenge students are eligible to apply for college scholarships. Currently the fund pool is at $50M.

Today the national FIRST Tech Challenge organization announced the JumpStart Program for FIRST Tech Challenge. This program allows you to register a FIRST Tech Challenge team right now (2017-2018 season) and have it also cover the national registration fees for 2018-2019 season ($275). This offer will be available for January - mid-March. You can order a Tetrix kit at a discount along with the electronics and jump start learning prior to next season. After March, you’ll need to wait until registration opens in May.

ALSO, if you want to learn more about FIRST Tech Challenge, a great way is to attend an event or better yet, volunteer for one.

ORTOP is looking for a variety of FIRST Tech Challenge volunteers for upcoming events in January and February.
* Team members in 6th-8th grade can volunteer to be Pit Runners and Door Queuers, Resetters. * Adults who are not currently associated with any FIRST Tech Challenge teams can volunteer to be a Judge, Referee or Scoretracker. There are also roles for Robot Inspectors, Field Queuing and Timekeepers with no restrictions as to team affiliation. * If you would like to volunteer, please visit our FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon Volunteer Page. * We need volunteers for OregonStateUniversity ¹⁄₂₇ and ¹⁄₂₈ and Gresham HS QT on ¹⁄₂₇ * We need volunteers for Super-Qualifier Weekend - Feb10 or Feb11 - Hillsboro, Portland * We need volunteers for the FTC Oregon Championship - Feb ²⁴⁄₂₅ - Hillsboro. o Events for Jan20 SOAR, Columbia Basin, Silicon Forest and events for Jan27 - MidColumbia, Capitol/Midwestern, TualatinValley/RoseCity - all volunteer roles are already filled. Join us for RELIC RECOVERY!! Live match videos

Kurt Schmidt Science Teacher Stormbots Assistant Coach Skyview High School Twitter: @PhysicsSchmidt