The Green Machine enters the 2008 build season with a strong line-up of corporate sponsorships. Fridley, Minn.-based Medtronic, Inc., and Dr. Stephen Oesterle, Senior Vice President, Medicine and Technology, are continuing their generous funding of the team, having donated $12,000 for this competition year. Another generous company from the 2007 competition season, St. Paul based Ecolab Inc., has returned and greatly increased its commitment to the team, doubling its donation of $5,000 from 2007 to the huge amount of $10,000 for 2008! New companies that have stepped forward this year include Wanner Engineering, Minneapolis, and FWR Communications Networks, Minneapolis. Other notable contributors returning this year include Honeywell Inc., Minneapolis, and Barr Engineering, Edina, Minnesota. Through sponsoring a FIRST team, these companies help to build much more then just a robot. Students who participate in the program gain valuable technical and creative skills that modern world necessitates for good employees. Enabling students to participate in FIRSTalso exposes them to the excitement and sense of accomplishment found in engineering and problem solving. Sponsorship dollars go a long way by enabling a large number of students to work within the program building these skills, and so the Green Machine thanks its sponsors dearly for continuing to support the team and the FIRST program as a whole.
