Have you ever wondered how to get your first-grade student involved with FIRST Robotics? Or maybe you would like to see robots in head-to-head competition? For the first time ever, you can see three FIRST Robotics programs in one day, on campus, in Edina! Saturday, December 13, teams from around the state will converge to compete in Junior FIRST Lego League, FIRST Lego League, and FIRST Tech Challenge competitions. In all, there will be 66 teams, all ages, all levels, at these three tournaments taking place at Valley View Middle School and Edina High School EPAC lobby. There will also be FIRST Robotics demos by Team 1816. We’ll have our 2014 robot, ZEKE, tossing the big exercise balls throughout the day.
To underscore how big a day this is for FIRST and STEM in Edina, On Tuesday, December 2nd, The Green Machine received a proclamation from Edina Mayor James Hovland, declaring Saturday, December 13th “Robotics Day in the City of Edina”. He told those in attendance at the Edina City Council meeting – and those watching at home on the cable broadcast — about our FIRST Robotics team and what we do to promote STEM in our schools and our community. We thank Mayor Hovland for helping us spread FIRST in our community and raising awareness for FIRST, The Green Machine and robotics as a whole.
All of this is made possible by High Tech Kids, which runs the FLL and FTC competitions in Minnesota, and an amazing number of volunteers who are donating their time and energy to making all of these tournaments run smoothly. It’s not too late to volunteer, the friendly people at HTK will help. And be sure to look for us Green Machine team members and parents, we’re volunteering at each of the three tournaments.