Team 1816 is excited to share the skills we’ve learned in our last four years of advocating for FIRST and STEM! On September 24th, please join The Green Machine for the inaugural MAC: the Minnesota Advocacy Conference. The goal of this conference is to begin the hard work of sustaining FIRST in Minnesota! Our work will encompass best-strategies to raise awareness of FIRST and after-school mentored STEM programs, and advocate for STEM funding from our Minnesota legislature.
For four years now, Team 1816 has traveled to Washington, DC, in June for the National Advocacy Conference (NAC). This event encourages FIRST teams to meet with their Congressional delegation to discuss issues related to STEM and FIRST Robotics. This year, The Green Machine was joined by Minnesota FRC Teams 2052-Knightkrawler, 2512-Daredevils and Minnesota FTC Team 9205-Iron Maidens. Together, we held six meetings with our Senators and Representatives to push for support and funding of STEM education at a national level. More importantly, these teams will be working with 1816 to facilitate the MAC! We are encouraging FIRST Teams to send 4 students plus 1 mentor to this STEM Conference. The cost is $10 per person, which includes conference materials and lunch. Please sign up here to participate in the MAC or write to us via our contact page if you would like additional information.
This year at the NAC, FIRST students helped advocate for the full funding of an important part of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). In particular, the advocacy focused on funding for Title 4 Part A, which will be distributed to states via block grants.
At the same time, after years of work, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was passed last December. Minnesota Senator Al Franken helped include a grant in Title 4, Part A of the bill that would provide funding for after school, mentor-based, STEM engagement programs such as FIRST. In recognition of Senator Franken’s efforts, he was presented with the inaugural “FIRST Legislator of the Year Award.”
“We have worked over the last several years on the reauthorization of ESEA (now ESSA) and we very much appreciate Senator Franken’s recognition of FIRST Robotics and his efforts on the (Senate) Education and Workforce committee to include key language to expand after-school mentor based STEM programs for under-served schools across the country,” said Steve Hyer, mentor for FRC 27-RUSH and organizer of the NAC. “Because of the close relationship FIRST and in particular our Minnesota FIRST Robotics teams have had with Senator Franken, and his efforts in helping us through the reauthorization of (ESSA), and on behalf of FIRSTFounder Dean Kamen and FIRST President Don Bossi, we have awarded him our inaugural FIRST Legislator of the Year award.”
In addition, attendees at the NAC helped complete “Dean’s Homework” by advocating with Minnesota Representatives Keith Ellison (MN 5th District); Betty McCollum (MN 4th District); Rick Ryan (MN 8th District), and Erik Paulsen (MN 3rd District), as well as Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, to gain their support for a commemorative coin to honor teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe and FIRST.