Rage Cage

The Team 3313 MW3 Tournament happened yesterday. Because of our preperation on Wednesday, most of the day went off without a hitch. We only had one match going at a time but based on the number of teams that came, that was not a big deal. We ended up having 5 teams of 4 people competing in the competition. It was a double elimination tournament. Each team had to pay an entry fee. We had another room with Rock Band going. The robot was out and about as well for more publicity. Someone (Jenna? Claire?) had the brilliant idea to sell concessions during the tournament which is where we made most of our money. We had pop, candy, and chips available. We also had a swear policy where anyone that swore had to donate $1. This was another great idea and a place where we made some profit. The winner was "Rage Cage," a group of seniors. There were quite a few matches that were close and exciting. We have had discussions about having another one in April once things slow down. Something like this wouldn't have been possible without a lot of help so thanks to Mr. D (principal), Mathew (network admin), and Sheree (activities secretary).

TWO WEEKS TO KICK OFF!

Fund (and Fun) Raising

The team met two times this week, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our main goal for this week was fundraising. We worked on accomplishing this goal in a number of ways.

1. We bought a lot of team wristbands about a month ago and finally received them last week. They are electric blue with our team name and number ink injected in black. They glow in the dark and look really sweet. We decided to sell them this year to students during lunch. To advertise the wristbands and our team, we brought the robot out during both lunches and let students drive it around. It was exhilerating seeing all the students surrounding the robot and asking questions about it. Awesome.

2. Our other big action for fundraising is a Modern Warfare 3 tournament that is occuring tomorrow. The tournament will happen at Jefferson High School from 10am to 2pm. The fundraising aspect is that teams of 4 pay $15 to register. The team that wins the tournament will then face off against each other in free for all. The winner of the tournament will receive a GameStop gift card. There will also be runners up prizes. It should be fun.
3. The last thing we are working on is emailing more groups and area companies for sponsorship. We greatly appreciate the sponsors we have now but to accomplish our main goal of attending Duluth and U of M Regionals, we need to raise more funds.

Our meetings this week were a little hectic. Each day was hectic for a different reason. Tuesday was hectic for good reasons. There were a bunch of new students for the meeting because of our presentations at Discovery Middle School. The team is really excited about the influx of younger students. Wednesday was hectic because of the icy roads. School was happening, then delayed, then cancelled within about an hour. This threw a wrench in our plans of preparing for the MW3 tournament. Luckily, many of the team members are very dedicated and still showed up later in the day to prepare. Update on how the tournament went tomorrow.

Roll out.

Mid-December Update

Hello again!

Just thought we should type a little summary of the things we have been working on the past few weeks since our mini-regional competition.

• We had another meeitng with the PMMC on December 7. We presented the group with our proposed budget for the season. They generously decided to donate a large sum of money to the team. THANK YOU PMMC!!! We also updated them with all of our contact information (Twitter:@team3313, youtube: search team 3313, facebook: search team 3313, this blog page, and our gmail address team3313mechatronics@gmail.com). The last news we presented them with was a mentor profile for them to share with their companies.
 
• The main business we have been working on recently is community outreach. The past two days have been CRAZY busy with presentations. Yesterday, we went to a meeting of the Sertoma Club in Alexandria. We presented our robot and a little bit about our club. Some of the members even got to drive the robot!
• Our other big community outreach piece was going to Discovery Middle School and talking to the Engineering classes over there. We are welcoming in ninth graders this year so hopefully a few will join. It was a lot of fun showing off our base robot and just sharing what we and FIRST are all about.
• Our next BIG EVENT is a Modern Warfare 3 competition at Jefferson on December 22 starting at 10am. Should be really fun and a lot of advertising for our team.

We learn the new game and rules on JANUARY 7th!!! We are all super pumped. We will be attending the Kick-Off at the U of M Twin Cities. Only 23 days!!!!!!